Home
by WiccaRowan
Summary: As any fan of the dramatic knows, events have a nasty habit of repeating themselves. After twenty years of denial, Sarah finds herself back in the Labyrinth which is, as ever, as dangerous as it needs to be. C7 and Alice lies dreaming...
1. Prologue: I Wish

_Author's Note / Disclaimer:_ This is my first foray into Labyrinth fanfic, which surprises the hell out of me because I've been a frothing-at-the-mouth fan of it since it came out. Obviously, I don't own Sarah, Toby, Jareth (gutted about that, truly) or any of the inhabitants of the Labyrinth. I do, however, own something that looks very much like a Muppet-fur coat.

* * *

**Prologue – I Wish…**

"_Do you know what you wish? / Are you certain what you wish is what you want?"  
__- Into The Woods (Stephen Sondheim)_

_-X-_

"If you don't behave yourself, the goblins will come and take you away."

The baby stopped crying long enough to give his half-sister a puzzled look then resumed his wails. The girl leaned over the cot.

"I mean it. I'll make them do it. I'll call the King of the Goblins and he'll send his soldiers and they'll take you away and turn you into a _goblin_ and it'll serve you right, cos you're…"

"Alice!"

The little girl stopped abruptly, biting her lip. She gazed up at the woman in the doorway and tried to look innocent.

"Alice, what have I told you about frightening Michael with that goblin nonsense?"

Alice's look of contrition was genuine. "I didn't mean it," she mumbled.

The woman crossed to the cot and picked up the baby. "C'mon Mikey Monkey, your sister was only teasing." She jiggled him on her hip and the screams descended into sobs, then hiccups, then silence. "The goblins won't take you away, I won't let them," she murmured into his downy head. Glancing up, she noticed that Alice was staring at them. "Do you want to hold your brother?"

"HALF brother," Alice corrected. "No. He smells, and he's noisy. If he was my real brother, he wouldn't cry all the time. He'd be nice."

"All babies cry, Alice. You did, I did. Your daddy certainly did."

"He's not my real daddy," Alice said with earnest six-year-old logic, "so maybe Michael cries because of him."

"Maybe." The baby had calmed down enough now for the woman to place him gently back into his cot. She motioned the little girl out of the room. Downstairs, she placed two small cookies on a plate and poured a glass of milk for the child. It was well past time Alice went to bed but her parents had indulged her more than a little since Michael's arrival. Maybe too much.

"Alice, I know he's not your real daddy, but he loves you just as much," the woman began. "Just the same as I'm not your real auntie, but I love you. And I love Michael. There's room for you both." She was convinced that the girl's resentment came more from being replaced as the baby than any issue of 'real' or not, but it was best to address these things before… _Before what? Before the goblins _do_ take him away? Don't be ridiculous._

"Auntie Sarah?" A small hand was placed on her cheek. Alice was kneeling on the sofa, her slate-blue eyes serious. "You are my real auntie."

Sarah gathered the little girl into her lap, trying to shake herself out of the sudden melancholy. "Does that mean I get to do this?" She blew a raspberry on Alice's neck and the child squealed in joy. God, she loved this girl. Not even her own flesh and blood, just her brother's step-daughter but Sarah still felt as though Alice was hers. _Never mind the goblins_, she thought, _I wish _I_ could take you away right now_. "Come on, trouble," she said, picking up the wriggling girl. "It's time for bed."

"Will you tell me a story about goblins?"

"I think there's been quite enough stories about goblins for one night. How about dragons?"

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Two stories about dragons, and one about a fairy princess later, Sarah finally got to open her laptop. She was horribly behind on the latest deadline. This book just wasn't coming together at all. Maybe she should just chuck it all in and do something else. _Like what? Become a full-time wife and mother? Not going to happen, remember?_ She sighed. She hadn't always felt this defeatist about life. There had been a time when she had been stubborn and determined, prepared to fight for what she valued. Maybe it was being on the wrong side of thirty-five.

"Ooh, late thirties. That's _nearly forty_," Toby had teased on her last birthday.

"How can you be a father and still be such a brat yourself?" Sarah had snapped back.

Toby's face had fallen briefly, then the customary grin returned. "Maybe it's just cos I've always got my big sister looking out for me," he said, hugging her. "C'mon Sarah, thirty-seven isn't _old_. Well, yeah, it's old but it's not _really old_."

"Anyway, you're only as old as the person you feel." Melissa Williams gave her husband an indulgent look.

"So that's why you got yourself a toyboy. Nothing to do with my charm and incredible good looks?" Toby tried to pout.

"Isn't that what you look for in a toyboy?" Sarah said.

She couldn't help but smile at them. Their father had been horrified when Toby started seeing a woman eight years his senior, and the fact that she had a three-year-old daughter had only made him more determined to steer his son away from her. Despite his playful nature, Toby was mature for his years and had never really seemed relaxed around girls his own age. Sarah had been so fiercely protective of her brother for so long, she was prepared to hate this woman, but she had loved Melissa and adored Alice from the start. It had been Sarah who coaxed their father round, first with tact then eventually resorting to pointing out that Toby's mother had managed to cope with a ten year age-gap and a thirteen-year-old stepdaughter.

"That's different," Robert Williams snorted. "Besides, he's hardly going to marry her, is he?"

Two weeks later, Toby proposed to Melissa. Sarah was best man at their wedding. "I know it's a bit weird, but you're my best friend," Toby had said. "I'd feel wrong with anyone else beside me."

It had also, conveniently, meant that Sarah hadn't had to bring a date to her brother's wedding. She slammed the lid on that thought before it got out of hand, and tried to concentrate on her work. Outside, there was a flash of lightning and a sudden rattle of rain against the windows. Shit. She hoped Toby and Melissa would be okay getting home. As if on cue, her mobile buzzed softly on the table.

"Hey, it's me," Toby said, his voice distorted. "Sorry … dump this on you … okay minding the kids … tomorrow morning?"

Sarah cupped the mobile close and put her hand over her other ear. "I can barely hear you. The kids are fine, both in bed. I don't mind staying as long as you need."

"… relief. You haven't … stories about…"

"What?"

"…babies who get…" Suddenly, the interference cleared. "King of the Goblins." There was another rumble of thunder and Sarah jumped. "Alice loves those stories but she'll never get to sleep if her head's full of goblins."

"Don't worry, it was dragons and princesses. She's out like a light." Once again, it seemed that someone with a very Hammer Horror sense of style was listening to her. The house lights flickered for a moment. "Toby, it's wretched here. Stay at Dave and Jenny's tonight. We'll be fine."

"Thanks, I owe you. Kiss the monsters from me. Melissa says… hang on a minute."

"Sarah, you're an angel," came Melissa's voice. "If you do need to sell the kids to the goblins, get a good price for them, okay?"

Sarah laughed uneasily. "Okay."

Toby came back on the phone. "We've got … see you in … love you, big sis."

"You're breaking up again. I…" Sarah realised she was talking to a dead line. "Love you too, Toby," she said quietly.

The lights flickered again and Sarah unplugged her laptop from the mains. She'd work until the battery gave out, but she didn't want to risk a power surge wiping out her hard drive. The next flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by the thunder-crash. The storm must be right overhead. Upstairs, Michael began to wail again. Sarah heard Alice's door open and the little girl's voice saying something impatient to the baby. Sarah began to shut down her file. It wouldn't do for Alice to wander downstairs and see this particular piece of work. Toby and Melissa would have a fit.

"Shut UP, Michael!" Alice yelled shrilly.

"I'll be up in a moment," Sarah called.

She was closing the laptop when she heard Alice say, very calmly, "I wish the goblins would come and take you away. Right now."

"Alice, that's not…" Sarah began, and then another crack of thunder, impossibly loud, cut off her words. The house lights flickered again and then went out. Upstairs, Michael's frantic crying was cut off as abruptly as if someone had thrown a switch.

Sarah's blood ran cold. For a horrible moment, she was turned to stone, one hand still on the case of her computer. She tried to call the children and could only manage a hoarse croak. Her heart must be racing, but every beat seemed a lifetime apart from the next. It was coincidence, just coincidence. There were no such things as goblins, they were just stories, just a dream, just the imaginings of a teenage girl, just fantasies, just nonsense. It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, it's…

"Not real!" Sarah gasped, shattering her immobility. She sprang from the sofa and raced up the stairs, falling on the turn and cracking her knee painfully against the banister. "Alice? Alice!"

Nothing. The house was far too quiet, even the storm seemed muted. It was all horribly, horribly wrong.

"Alice!" Sarah flung herself into her niece's room, just to check, not postponing the inevitable, not at all. The little girl wasn't there, but she had gone to check on her brother, that was all, they were both in their parents' room now, stunned into silence by the violence of the weather. That was it, everything was fine, it was all fine. Sarah turned to run into the other bedroom, but her feet were suddenly leaden. The breath dragged in her lungs as she walked the thousand miles into the master bedroom.

The window gaped wide open, curtains streaming in the wind. The cot was empty. There was no sign of the children.


	2. One: Bargaining

_Disclaimer: _I've checked, just to make absolutely sure and no, I still don't own Jareth. Darn it. Nor do I own Sarah, Toby or the Labyrinth and its many citizens.

* * *

**One – Bargaining**

"_In your room / Where time stands still / Or moves at your will"  
_– _In Your Room (Depeche Mode)_

_-X-_

Empty. The cot. Empty. The room… Sarah's frantic heartbeat roared in her ears. _How? Where?_ She should close the window, she really should, but her feet seemed rooted to the floor in the middle of that horribly empty room. Slowly, like a puppet whose strings have been cut one by one, she folded to the carpet, crouched over, head bent. She was numb with horror. Someone had taken the children. While she sat downstairs, conjuring flights of fantasy, someone had come into this house and taken the children. Who could do something like this?

_You know who_.

"No," Sarah moaned, her hands digging into the carpet. "It's not real."

How long had it taken? How long had she stood in her father's room, staring at Toby's empty cot? How long had she cowered while creatures cavorted on the edge of her sight? How much time had she spent, striking her bargain?

Talking to him.

How much time had gone by before she, too, had vanished from the house? If her father or Karen had been home, if they had run upstairs the moment Toby had stopped crying, would they have seen Sarah, or would she already have gone?

Or would she already have returned? Time had run differently there, after all.

_Where? _she reminded herself savagely. _In the place that doesn't exist?_ She should call the police, she shouldn't touch the window. She should call Toby and Melissa and tell them… _Tell them? That someone took their children?_ "Oh no," she whispered. "I can't. I can't."

How long had it taken? She had run straight upstairs, and if it _was_ true, if it _was_ real then _- it's not true it's not real it can't be real – _then why was Alice not still here? Here, waiting, as she had been, twenty-two years ago when that thing that never happened had happened, when she had struck that unreal bargain with a creature that could not exist. The world span sickly around her, and she put her head on her knees.

Then, in a voice smaller than the smallest mouse, smaller than a _– worm, just a worm_ – someone said, "Auntie Sarah?"

Sarah was kneeling next to Toby and Melissa's bed, a massive wooden gothic piece which Melissa had restored, much to her husband's teasing. The covers fell to the floor. With a shaking hand, Sarah reached out and lifted a corner. When small fingers brushed hers, she almost shrieked in terror, but then she recognised scared blue eyes and a mop of strawberry-blonde curls.

"Alice!" The name that came out on a trembling breath was barely recognisable. The relief was so sharp that Sarah felt limp. The children were just frightened by the storm, then. Sarah pulled up the bedcovers to get to the little girl. "Are you and Michael playing a game in there?" she said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice.

"Auntie Sarah," said Alice in the same tiny voice, "Michael's gone. They took him. I'm sorry." She didn't cry. She looked as though she was so far beyond fear that she had forgotten how.

Sarah beat back renewed panic. "Who took him, Alice?" she said, trying to get some leverage to pull the girl from her hiding place. _You don't want to know the answer. You already know._

"They…" Alice whispered, then her voice faded out altogether as she stared past her aunt's head.

Sarah rolled onto her side in time to see a shadow of something _– an owl, but it's not really an owl now, is it? – _pass the window, and fear flooded back into her like freezing water. "Stay there," she hissed, dropping the covers back down. Hiding under the bed was only good for a moment, but a moment was better than nothing. Last time – _when nothing happened_ – she had found enough courage to fight and she been little more than a child herself.

There was a shrill giggle from the cot. _No, this is real, this is an intruder in your home, not some supernatural force_. Sarah refused to look at the writhing blankets, and grabbed Toby's high-school baseball bat from the top of the chest of drawers.

"_Are you ever going to grow up and throw that thing out?"_

"_Nope, it's a reminder of when I was a hot young sports star."_

Sarah flattened herself against the wall, hiding in shadows. She was a grown woman now. And he – _the person who doesn't exist – _wasn't looking for her. He wasn't interested in grown-ups. They could fight back. _She_ could fight back. A cold, unnatural light spilled through the open window, throwing the silhouette of an owl across the bedroom floor. As Sarah watched, fascinated despite herself, the shape whirled and changed. Last time, she had thrown her arms up to protect herself from beating wings and when she had lowered them…

_dark cloak, tall form, long hair silvered by magical moonlight, inhuman, not real, not real it can't be real _he_ can't be real he can't be he can't be_

Real. Sarah was suddenly shaking so hard that she had to lean against the wall. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. All that time. All those years. Years of denial, frustration, screaming, hurting, hating, dying inside. Acceptance, eventually. A locked room in her head. And now… what? It was all real? It had always been real? And if it was, were the last twenty-two years of her life a lie?

"There is no point in hiding."

That voice, like silk, like ice, like knives, like velvet. Sarah almost stepped from her shadowy corner before she realised that he – _he has a title, you know. Or a name if you dare_ – was not talking to her. The cloaked form stood by the bed. All that Sarah could see was the long line of his back and the crown of pale hair. He wasn't talking to her at all. He was talking to Alice. He was going to take away the shining centre of Sarah's life. Rage flooded her. With every ounce of strength in her body, she swung the baseball bat toward the invader's head.

For a beautiful moment, watching the curved trajectory of the weapon, Sarah's heart sang. _Got you, you evil bastard!_ Then, scant millimetres from its target, the bat just… stopped as though the air had turned solid. Knowing it was futile, Sarah tensed her muscles to take another swing but she was trapped, utterly immobile but for the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She couldn't even fight it. Her body was no longer her own to control. It belonged to someone else.

It belonged to him. To the Goblin King. A figure of nightmares made flesh. A person – _no, not a person, not human_ – who hadn't even flinched as the would-be-lethal swing ruffled his long hair, who didn't even need to raise a finger to paralyse her, who continued to ignore the presence of the woman behind him as he stooped down beside the bed.

"I know where you are, Alice," he addressed the covers smoothly. "And I know what you said."

_What's said is said._

Sarah could hear the sound of the little girl's frightened breathing, and if she could hear Alice, so could he. Her arms, stretched in their incomplete gesture of defiance, began to ache but she still couldn't move.

"Ah well," the Goblin King sighed. "You will emerge in time, and I have all of time at my disposal." He made a dismissive gesture and stood in one fluid motion. "But now I must deal with this rather interesting problem."

He turned to Sarah and her breath caught in her throat. Her first, treacherous thought was that he had no right, _no right_ to be so completely unchanged, for the cold, feral beauty to be immune to the passing of almost a quarter century. And if he was the same, so was her fear, her awe. She almost lost herself in those uncanny eyes, fighting with last scrap of her sanity to remember what time had passed, that she was an adult now, not an insecure adolescent girl.

"Very interesting," he mused, unfolding Sarah's hands and throwing the baseball bat negligently onto the bed. He stared down into her face, his head cocked on one side. "You _are_ an unexpected twist in the tale, aren't you? A grown woman who sees through a child's eyes." A black-clad finger stroked her cheek. "So brave, so foolish. You remind me of someone I knew. Who _are_ you?"

Sarah's fury was tempered with a horrible disappointment. All of those years, all of that time and he _didn't remember_? How could he have changed her so much then just have forgotten her? He made her existence a living hell, made her doubt her own sanity, almost destroyed her. How could it not be burned into his heart, his soul? _Maybe because he has neither_. She hissed through her clenched teeth, an impotent gesture but it was _something_. It gave a little bit of her back to herself.

The Goblin King cradled her chin in his hand, gazing into her eyes for a few more moments, the same feline, puzzled look on his face. "No matter," he said softly, and released her to turn to the bed.

The unspent momentum caused Sarah to stumble inelegantly forward. She grabbed clumsily at her enemy's shoulder. "Keep your hands off her, you son of a bitch," she spat. "She's too young to play your sick little games. You are not taking her into that filthy Labyrinth."

He spun abruptly with a look of almost-recognition, and suddenly Sarah realised her error. He _did_ remember. He just didn't remember her. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to weep. "Twenty-two years!" she said, hysteria rising in her voice. "Twenty-two goddamn years! You always take babies, don't you realise that humans age? _We_ get older. _We_ change. Look at you! It's like it was yesterday. You have no right to do that. It isn't fair!"

Light flashed in the odd eyes. "Sarah," the Goblin King said, drawing out her name so that it was almost a caress. "Well well." She was motionless once more, prey caught under the predator's gaze as he circled her. "Seeing is believing, and believing is most definitely seeing. I'm flattered."

"Don't be," Sarah spat, her fists clenching. "Where's Michael? Bring him back. Now."

"Ah, now I know you. 'Give me this, I want that.' Still the same petulant child." He swept a scornful look down her body. "You may be older but you have not changed at all."

Sarah bristled. "I've changed enough to see straight through you. You don't frighten me any more." _Liar_, her inner voice challenged. _He scares the hell out of you. He still has the power to make you… Power…_ She straightened up and looked her adversary in the eyes. "And you're forgetting one thing, Your High-and-Mighty Baby-Snatching Majesty. _You have no power over me._"

She didn't honestly expect him to vanish in a puff of smoke but, nonetheless, a part of her was disappointed when nothing happened. Then, adding insult to injury, the Goblin King began to laugh. "Oh Sarah, I had quite forgotten how entertaining you were," he said. "You are absolutely right. I have no power over _you_." Smiling did nothing to soften his face, he looked more alien, less compassionate than ever. The laughter went out of his voice entirely as he glanced over his shoulder. "Alice, come out," he ordered smoothly.

The long covers lifted and the little girl scrambled from under the bed. A black-gloved hand tousled the bright curls. "What a lovely child. Power is a funny thing, isn't it?"

Sarah felt bile at the back of her throat and swallowed hard. "Alice, tell him," she said desperately. "Tell him."

Alice looked up at her aunt. Her face was chalk-white, eyes wide with fear but still dry. "Auntie Sarah…" she whispered.

"Alice, _please_."

"You have no power over me," the little-mouse voice said.

The Goblin King clutched one hand theatrically to his chest, his eyes never leaving Sarah's face. "Oh, the pain!" he mocked her. "Beaten! By a mere chit of a girl! Come on, Sarah, you should know better than that. Look at her. Words only have power if they have belief. And dear little Alice believes absolutely from the bottom of her golden heart that I _do_ have power over her. But, as you said, I have none over you. Go, if you wish."

Sarah shook her head. "I can't." _Don't you understand that I can't… such a pity…_

"Then I suggest that you keep quiet and stop wasting time. Not my time, hers and that of her brother." He dropped to his haunches in front of Alice. "Now, I'm not the villain your aunt believes, child. I did as you asked. Does that make you happy?"

"Of course it doesn't make her happy," Sarah snapped.

Lightning-fast, the Goblin King was on his feet, backing Sarah against the wall with a hand over her mouth, eyes blazing angrily into hers. "I believe I asked you to be quiet. This has nothing to do with you, do you understand? You are not even her blood. You are _nothing_. If the little girl chooses to enter the Labyrinth to fight for her brother, it is not your concern. If she decides to abandon him to me, it is not your concern. If she wants to join him as a goblin, it is not your concern. It is her choice. Hers, not yours. _Do you understand?_"

The taste of blood where her teeth had cut her lip, the vice-like hand on her face, the unnatural heat of a feral form too close for comfort. Sarah couldn't tear her gaze away from those inhuman eyes. If she had been afraid before, it was nothing to this. Through the roaring in her ears and the blackness edging her vision, she was aware that Alice had crept forward to tug at the long black cloak and to speak three awful words.

"I'll do it."

Sarah was released to slide limp down the wall. "Alice, no!"

The Goblin King didn't spare her another word. He put a guiding hand on Alice's shoulder, turning the little girl to face the window. "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth," he began, then the two forms began to fade.

"Oh, no. Alice, no." Sarah closed her eyes. _Maybe if I wish hard enough, this will be a dream. Maybe I have slipped again. Maybe it's not real. I should go back to the doctor, there was always a chance this would happen. It's just a delusion._ She opened her eyes, but the cot was still empty, the baseball bat still lying on the bed, the window still open. If she squinted, she thought she could make out a faint shadow that might be a tall black-cloaked form and a six-year-old girl in a much-loved Barbie nightie. Before she was even aware of what she was saying, Sarah heard the words come from her own mouth.

"I wish the goblins would come and take me away right now."

The shadows continued to thin, blurring in a hot rush of tears. Sarah turned blindly away from the empty window and bumped heavily into a solid shape.

"Now what?" The Goblin King did not look amused.

Sarah wiped her eyes with her sleeve, the last shreds of her dignity gone. "What do you want?" she said. Then, hating herself for begging but doing it all the same, "I'll do anything. Please just let me help them. Please."

"What makes you think that you have anything I want?"

"I'm sure there must be something. You… you offered me things… wanted things before. I could… I could…" _After all, it wouldn't be any worse than the things you've done already, right?_ "You know, if you…" She couldn't speak the words to offer herself to him, but she controlled her shaking hands enough to draw her sweater over her head. "If you want."

One long, black-clad finger traced a slow path from the hollow of her throat between her breasts down to the button of her jeans. "An interesting offer," the Goblin King said coldly. "You think that if you spread your legs, it will be worth the lives of those two children, do you? You rate yourself very high indeed. Put your clothes back on. I have no desire to take you, in any sense that you mean it." He turned his back on her.

Sick and shamed, Sarah pulled her sweater back on. What else did she have? What would a character like this want? All he cared for was stealing children. "Wait!" she called. "I can promise you something equal. I will give you my firstborn child."

The blonde head turned, interest finally showing on the chilly face. "Now that would be a worthy exchange."

Sarah released the tiniest sigh of relief. In a heartbeat, the Goblin King was standing behind her, an arm tight around her shoulders, hot breath against her cheek. His other hand snaked around her waist, reaching under her clothing to dig into her abdomen. "But it's a rather _empty_ promise, isn't it?" he hissed into her ear, tightening his fingers until she gasped in pain. "You would call me cruel and capricious, but even I would not presume to offer something that has already been _taken_."

Sarah's world tilted abruptly. _How could he know?_ If he could read her mind then she was lost, and Alice and Michael were damned. She was only aware that the vice-like grip had been released when she felt carpet under her palms and realised that she was on her knees again. So she was reduced to this, broken, begging, grovelling at his feet. Maybe that was what he wanted to see. She had beaten him once. He seemed like a creature which would enjoy the taste of revenge.

"What now, Sarah?" She looked up to see her nemesis sitting on Toby's bed. "Do you have any more cheap little offers for me? Any other worthless bargains? I remember a girl who turned down her dreams to save her baby brother. I was wrong, you _have_ changed. And into this." He waved a lazy hand toward her. "Such a pity."

He was right. He was absolutely right. Once, when she had been brave, she had thrown herself into the unknown for what she believed was right. Where had that girl gone? The world had seemed so black and white when she had stepped into the Labyrinth. In thirteen hours, less than that really – _how about upping the stakes_ – a million shades of grey had been introduced into her life. The easy way was not always right; the way forward was often the way back; the villain was not just a thing of nightmares, he was a thing of dreams too. And the heroine was not flawless, not perfect. Childhood and purity and innocence, tearing away from her. Shades of grey, too many choices, too many _wrong_ choices. All given her by him. All his fault. She had changed. He had changed her.

So, what were Alice and Michael worth? More than her middle-aged body, more than the child that would never be hers to give. More than anything. "Please. You have to let me help her. She's so much younger than I was, and I had help."

"You had help from treacherous citizens of the Labyrinth and the Goblin City, as I recall," the Goblin King said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. "You did not have help from any meddling outsiders. If those such as the dwarf choose to help her, so be it." He gave her a cruel smile. "But I hope that they have learned their lesson by now."

Sarah's heart gave an unpleasant lurch. It hadn't even occurred to her what may have happened to her friends. "I know I'm not a goblin or anything, but Alice needs me. She's just a baby. She's not even _dressed_." Damn it, damn him. Of course, he had all the time in the world to toy with her, but she could feel time slipping through her fingers. "I will do anything you want," she repeated. "I don't mean… I don't mean s-sex or anything like that, I know you don't want… You have to understand, those children mean more to me than me own life, if that's what you want then I'll do it, I'll give up my life for them, please, is that what you want?" She was babbling, she knew it, but then the idea came up from the storm of words, thrown into the air then so absolutely solid that she knew it was the right thing. Not the easy thing, but the right thing. With cold dread hollowing her insides, she straightened until she was on one knee beside the bed.

"I can help them if I'm a citizen of the Labyrinth, right? Then do it. Make me a citizen of the Labyrinth." She bent her head, a supplicant, a subject. "I am yours to command, your Majesty."

_

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_

Author's Note:

As well as the more obvious theft, I have also borrowed from Terry Pratchett - the concept that "hiding under the bed was only good for a moment, but a moment was better than nothing" is taken from _Lords And Ladies_. And some of you may recognise shades from _Flash Gordon_ in a certain part of this chapter – prizes go to the person who spots it and admits that they are as much of an old fart as I am. 


	3. Two: Kip

_Disclaimer:_ The characters, concepts, goblins, buildings, costumes, etc in this story are either (a) entirely not mine or (b) sort-of mine but based heavily on stuff that really isn't mine at all.

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* * *

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Two – Kip

"_I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives"  
_– _Holiday (Green Day)_

-X-

… _I want to go home … please … just let me … _

… _it's far more common than people like to believe, Mr Williams …_

… _but she'll be all right? You can cure her …_

… _dad, please, I'll be good, I…_

… _isn't there an easier way, Robert? She's so young …_

… _no other way …_

… _a good proportion never have another episode …_

… _I thought she was happy …_

… _dad, just let me go home …_

… _not in control of her own actions …_

… _you have to understand that we love you, Sarah …_

… _dad, please, don't leave me here …_

… _this is for your own good …_

… _get me out of here, please dad, get me out I can't stay here daddy please daddy get me out please oh please get me out of here DADDY PLEASE GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME …_

Kip woke with a jolt, her heart racing. Around the barracks, the other members of the Guard continued to snore on, oblivious. So the screaming had only been in her own head then. She was relieved, in a way. It would have been embarrassing to wake the whole company yelling some nonsense about being trapped, but it would have been nice for someone else to have woken up. Kip didn't dream very often. Some of the Guard, those who dreamed quite regularly, would discuss the night-walking at length, delving for meaning. The more superstitious among them said that the King's hand was on every dream, that he spun each one. They believed that King Jareth chose dreams to reward or punish those goblins who had brought themselves to his notice one way or another. It was one of his ways of letting them know that he watched them all the time.

Kip wasn't sure that she believed any of that, but she made a surreptitious gesture of protection, just in case. The King _did_ watch them all the time, she knew that much. There wasn't a single goblin in the City who hadn't thought they had got away with something foolish only to hear that cool, sardonic voice from a previously empty doorway or abandoned tree. Kip had been the victim of more than one verbal flaying and not a few kicks, mostly during her training. Others, less lucky, had been transported to the boundaries of the Bog, dropped in the Forest, used as cannon fodder. His Majesty certainly had a quick temper and a rather… _interesting_ sense of humour. But to imagine that he tailor-made dreams for even the lowliest goblin was a little far-fetched.

Well, whether or not her dreams were created especially for her by the King, there was no point in trying to get back to sleep. Kip sighed softly and pulled her blanket around her shoulders for a moment, grabbing the last of its warmth before rolling out of bed. She wondered who she had been in the dream. It had been her but not her, as if she was a passenger in someone else's memory. The few times before that she had dreamed, she had always been Kip. This was different. Still, Kip was a member of the Guard and wasn't going to let a dream frighten her, no matter how disturbing it had been.

Grubber was already in the kitchen and stirring a large cauldron of something. He gave Kip a wide grin. "Gettin' a jump on the boys?" he said, handing her a bowl of tea.

Kip shrugged, curling her hands around the bowl. "Can't hurt," she said. Part of her was tempted to talk to Grubber about the dream, but she didn't think he would understand. The cook was relatively bright for his type, but the Born didn't dream. It would be like a bird trying to explain to Kip that her wings didn't work.

"Porridge'll be ready in a few minutes," Grubber said. "You look like you need it."

"Mmmm." Kip stared into the cauldron. She had the uneasy feeling that she was meant to be doing something. Not just her usual training, not even a Guard inspection. Something else. Something so important that it would bring down her world if it wasn't done. "Grubber, there isn't…? I mean, have you heard if anything strange is happening?"

"Strange?" The cook poured a crock of milk into the cauldron. He sniffed the mixture critically, large nose flaring, then added a handful of nut-meal. "Nah. It's bin quiet lately. Yer prob'ly just edgy cos you ain't had a good fight in an age."

"Probably." Kip tried to smile. The answer wasn't at the bottom of the porridge cauldron, no matter how hard she looked. "Maybe I should ask for some more duty at the Castle. That keeps a goblin on her toes." She thought about some of her fellow Guards. "If she has toes," she amended.

Grubber gave a snort of laughter. "Ye've got odd ways to amuse yourself, that's fer sure. Not that I've any disrespect for His Majesty," a hairy paw touched the low forehead, an unconscious salute, "but I'd not want to go any higher in the Castle than I am right now. 'e'll be in a good mood though, got called last night, so I 'ear."

The nagging feeling nudged Kip sharply enough to make her sway. The King was always more mellow after a new baby was brought into the Castle. He was good with children, in his way. But there had been Callings recently, and Kip had barely been aware of the fact. Other goblins took care of the children, the Guard had duties elsewhere. So why did this piece of news bring such a chill?

"That's not all. Rumour 'as it that the Clock is ticking. So maybe ye'll get yer fight." Grubber tailed off. "You all right? Looks like you just got yer first sniff o' the Bog or summat. What's up?"

"I… nothing. I just need to wake up." Kip made her way into the courtyard, her head reeling. _The Clock is ticking_. Someone was fighting the Labyrinth. That _was_ unusual. A depressing number of children who were wished away were done so without regret. Still, very few reached the City, fewer still got through it to the Castle. Fight or not, Kip should not have this sense of… what? Fear? No, it was more as if the building blocks that formed her world has suddenly become paper-thin. She shook her head, trying to clear it, then stumbled to the water trough and scooped a great cold handful over her head. _There_, she told herself, eyes squeezed shut against the dripping tickle of her hair. _I'm awake. It was just that dream. After all, how could I know about the child, or the Clock, or any or that? I'm just Kip. I'm just a Guard. I'm nothing special_. She opened her eyes.

And screamed.

By the time Grubber came lumbering out into the courtyard clutching a massive ladle to defend himself against attack, Kip had the presence of mind to get back on her feet and feign a limp. "Was half asleep, kicked the damned trough," she said casually.

"Curse it, Kip, you scared me half to death!" Grubber lowered the ladle. "Ain't never heard you yell like that, not even when you got yer wounds stitched."

"Just took me by surprise is all," she argued, letting a hint of annoyance creep into her voice. "Can't be the big tough Guard when I'm hardly awake."

"Right," Grubber said quietly. He wasn't stupid, Kip reminded herself, just solid and slow. "Well, if any more possessed water troughs attack you, jest you call." The cook stumped back into his domain, muttering under his breath about high-strung Guards.

Kip let out a sigh of relief. Grubber's comforting bulk had somehow banished that sense of unreal terror from the courtyard. She couldn't possibly have looked into the water and seen… someone else, could she? Cautiously, as if the water trough were indeed possessed, she edged over to it and placed both hands on the rim. Maybe it was just a trick of the early morning light. Maybe it had just been His Majesty, playing a joke. It was unlikely, but not unheard-of. The face in the water had no more looked like the King than it had Kip, but that didn't mean anything. The King was powerful, after all. From nowhere, the sense of urgency returned to her. She _had_ to do something, be somewhere. The Clock was ticking, time was running out. Kip was horrified to see the hands on the stone trough start to shake.

"Curse it all, you're not a damned recruit!" she said aloud. "You're Sergeant-at-Arms. Remember that."

With her rank echoing in her ears, she looked back into the water. Her world spun abruptly and she –

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- didn't remember clearly what happened in Toby's bedroom after. The last real memory she had was a feeling of prison doors slamming shut as the Goblin King put a hand on her bent head.

"So be it," he said, and she couldn't tell if it was resignation in his voice or something else.

It wasn't like the last time she had come into the Labyrinth. Then, the Goblin King had performed some sleight-of-hand, or possibly sleight-of-mind, and moved Sarah smoothly between worlds. Of course, he had been trying to impress her then, to keep her off balance with the glamour and romance of the whole thing, to keep her in a story. This was different. This time she was truly and irreversibly his. After that sense of doors closing in her mind, the hand on her head seemed to push and pull her all at once, she was crumpled up small, she was stretched out, she was confined in a box, she was thrown into the void. The room went dark, then it wasn't a room at all, it was nothing. No sight, no sound, no feeling any more. She was floating, she was trapped. From a distance, she heard a faint, desperate thread of a young girl sobbing.

… _get me out I can't stay here daddy please daddy get me out please …_

But that was a cry half a lifetime away. More than that. That was a litany from a soul only –

…_seventeen years old is reasonably young for this degree of disturbance, Mr Williams, nonetheless many teens do experience quite extreme delusion. Don't worry, Sarah will be quite safe with us …_

She hadn't been safe anywhere. With medication, with time, with talking talking talking until she thought her mind would burst, they had taught her to lock everything away. There. Gone. If you put your fingers in your ears and sing, you can't hear. If you bury your head in the sand, you can't see. If you close the doors in your head, if you poison your imagination, if you throw away your dreams, you can be – _isolated, destroyed, dead – _normal. And, eventually, you get to walk out, to go home, to live a normal life. To be normal. Like everyone else. To tell yourself that those voices, those faces, those things were nothing, they were nightmares. Everyone has nightmares. _Normal people_ have nightmares. And, past the bad times, past trying to prove yourself normal, trying to prove _to yourself_ that you are just like everyone else, to use your dreams, to paint pictures of a dark and stormy night. To feed other imaginations with torn and broken scraps of your own. Until, on a dark and stormy night, the ghosts of dreams long since murdered come back.

There was a breeze against her face, icy trickles of water running down her neck. She could feel rough stone under her palms. Sarah opened her eyes. She was in the middle of a large courtyard walled with long, low buildings. Across the packed dirt floor she saw a series of targets and a rough straw shape hanging from a rope. It was dawn, weak silvery light struggling to banish mist from the morning. Beyond a heavy gate, a hundred small houses sprawled higgledy-piggledy, dozens of styles, windows, tiny turrets, twisting streets. Aware of a menacing presence at her back, Sarah turned to see another barn-like building dwarfed by the impressive walls of the Castle.

The Castle of the Goblin King. The end of the journey. She was at the end, and Alice was at the beginning. In thirteen hours, maybe less, probably less, Sarah needed to make it all the way out to find the little girl, then all the way back in again. It was impossible. It wasn't _fair_. In anger and despair, she hung her head and stared into the water trough in front of her.

A face that wasn't hers stared back. It was a dark, somewhat squashed-looking face with a snub nose and wide mouth. Frizzy, nearly-red hair was escaping from two braids. An nasty-looking scar ran up a brown cheek and passed too close for comfort by one round brown eye. Too shocked to scream, Sarah reached out and saw a small, callused hand stir the water surface. The ugly reflection broke up then its puzzled gaze reformed. This was _her_? This couldn't be her. She must be dreaming. She was… _make me a citizen of the Labyrinth_.

As he ever had done, the Goblin King had given Sarah what she asked for.

In panic, she tried to pull herself away from the trough, but hands were gripping the stone firmly, out of her control. It was as if she –

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- wasn't even herself any more. The moment of disorientation passed, but the unfamiliar face still looked up out of the water. Wonder started to edge out the fear. 'Curiosity killed the cat' wasn't a common expression in the City, but Kip had personal experience of the fact that curiosity got the Goblin lost in the Forest, almost splattered with Bog mud and clipped painfully around the ear by the King. Despite this, she maintained a cheerful inquisitiveness more suited to the young, untried recruits under her command. Kip tightened her hold on the trough and leaned further over, looking at the face that her reflection had borrowed. The human reflection.

Was this what she would look like as a human then? When she had cast her mind to it, which wasn't often, Kip had always thought that certain things were the same in any world, that she would always be stocky, always have those dark eyes, always have to deal with that unruly hair that was a shade between brown and red. She could never have imagined the pallor and smoothness of the skin which she saw, let alone the glossy waves of cropped dark hair and wide-set green eyes. Well, if this was her human face, she was striking, she supposed. Kip was hardly a good judge of human form, having seen maybe a dozen in her lifetime. But her human self was no scarred Sergeant, that was for sure. Kip watched her brown, sword-hardened hand touch fingertip to pale, slender fingertip with the woman in the water. What had brought her this vision? Grubber had made jokes about the water trough being possessed, but maybe he wasn't far off the mark. What if Kip herself was somehow being taken over? It was magic, that was for sure, and the only magic around here belonged to the His Majesty. Why would he single her out for something like this, and what did it mean? She doubted he even knew her name. Mostly, her referred to the goblins, even the Guard, as "hey you". The only time he had ever spoken to her as a person in her own right was three years ago, when she had been wounded. He had visited the barracks after the battle and dropped a hand onto Kip's shoulder.

"Well done, Sergeant-at-Arms," he had said, conferring praise and promotion with one brief sentence. Despite the pain in her cheek, Kip had glowed with pride for days afterward. Even now, it was a treasured memory. Kip smiled at her trapped reflection, and was surprised when it failed to smile back. It was almost as if the woman in the water –

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- was someone else entirely. Sarah finally managed to wrench her hands away from the trough. The ugly face looked as though it was grinning up at her, mocking her misery. She supposed that the Goblin King had given her this form in the hope that she would forget her true self and be content to run about chasing chickens. _Forget it, you evil bastard. You may have got one over on me this time, but you are _not_ going to win_. This was merely a setback. Along with the fact that she was in the middle of the Labyrinth rather than the outside, and the fact that she had no idea where Alice was, or how to find her. Just a few minor problems. Surely there was a shortcut, though. Hoggle had talked constantly about there being an easy way out. The only reason it had taken Sarah so long to get to the Castle was that she had been misled time and again. And this time, much as the thought disgusted her, she was one of _them_. She could just ask one of the other creatures. Then she could get straight out to the edge, bring Alice back in to rescue Michael and…

_Hang on a minute_. King Cheating Shithead wasn't playing fair. There was no reason why Sarah should either. The damn Castle was right behind her, after all What was the point in running to and fro, when she could just take Michael herself, right now? The buildings surrounding her looked like a barracks, but it was pretty early so the goblins – _the other goblins_ – would probably still be sleeping. Then, once she had Michael and had found Alice, there was the matter of her own current goblin-hood to deal with. Sarah had meant every word that she had said to the Goblin King – if it was necessary that she become one of _them_ and never go back to her real life again, it was a worthy exchange for the children's freedom. But only if it was necessary. She would dwell on that later. The priority now was to get into the Castle. Sarah turned and started to run back across the courtyard. Ten steps later, her feet began to grow heavy. Six more and they were dragging. She managed another two steps, feeling as though she was hauling each leg through thigh-deep mud. _What the hell is going on?_ Suddenly, her body –

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- was being guided by someone else, someone who wasn't her at all. Kip was bemused to find herself halfway back to the mess hall. The Castle loomed disapprovingly over her. She supposed that her stomach had taken independent control and demanded that her body be fed, regardless of the odd happenings. She may as well go with it. No matter how strange this morning was, it would surely be better with some food. Kip walked back toward the familiar dark warmth of the mess, trying to ignore the fact that her feet wanted to run. She had no idea how long she had been standing in the courtyard. It couldn't have been long, her hair was still wet and Grubber hadn't come out to fetch her. At the door, a sudden sense of anticipation gripped her, making her skin crawl. She wasn't afraid to go into the _mess_ now, was she? Why? She had just come from there, it was safe, Grubber's food had never killed anyone yet. He and Kip's fellow Guard were the only ones in there. Why did part of her not want to go in there?

No, it wasn't that she wanted to avoid the room exactly, more that she wanted to run straight through it. If she found the way through into the Castle kitchens, she could get straight up into the upper levels, then maybe find the room where the stolen babies were imprisoned… _No! Not stolen but gifted. Not imprisoned but given new homes._ Where had these thoughts come from? They were perilously close to treason, they were not Kip's thoughts at all. What was happening to her? Was this the King's doing? Why would he do this to her? She was loyal, she would die for her monarch. Trembling, Kip tried to make herself walk through the door, but her legs wouldn't work properly and she –

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- fell heavily to the packed earth in that filthy courtyard. _Damn it!_ Sarah tried to get back to her feet, only they weren't her feet at all. They were brown, slightly hairy and bare. In Toby's house, she had been wearing sneakers, but they were obviously on her _other_ feet. No time to think about that now. Whatever screwed-up thing was happening, she had to get into the Castle. She had to cling to what mattered. Okay, she didn't have the stamina and body of a teenager any more – _you don't even have the body of a human any more_ – but she was older, wiser, more likely to spot the traps, less willing to fall for a romantic dream. It would be fine, as long as she could make this treacherous body do what it was told. All she had to do was get up and get into the Castle. She -

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- had to get to the Castle. Food wasn't important. It didn't even matter that she was still wearing the battered tunic and leggings that she slept in, that she was barefoot and unarmed. There was something in the Castle that pulled her like a magnet. _No!_ It wasn't pulling her, it was calling to something else, maybe to that person in the water who Kip was beginning to suspect wasn't her at all. But curse it all, she was Sergeant-at-Arms, not some idiot recruit. She couldn't just wander into the King's domain, it wasn't right. _I'm Sergeant-at-Arms. I'm a loyal subject. I'm Kip. _But part of her wasn't Kip at all. It -

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- was being torn between two selves. Sarah hadn't been given a goblin body, she had been given _to_ one. Somehow, she was trapped in the ugly form of one of those things that she had fought all those years ago. It was a warped poetic justice, doubtless the sort of thing that amused the Goblin King no end. If she ever got the change again, she wouldn't just throw his stupid offers back in his face, she would do her level best to kill him. _You think I'm going to be a loyal subject, Your Majesty? Forget it. You'd better watch your back._ _So help me god, I will -_

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No. NO! Kip beat her fists against the earth floor. _I will not hurt my King. _Then, to that voice within herself but aloud in case she didn't recognise which voice was hers any more, "_You_ will not hurt my King."

(I will do what I need to do.) The voice was sullen, sulky. But it was the voice of the other, it wasn't Kip. Somehow, knowing this made everything much easier.

"What are you?"

(I am a _who_ not a _what_. I need to get to the Castle.)

"Then who are you?"

(Sarah. What are you?)

"_What_ I am," Kip said, acid in her tone, "is Sergeant-at-Arms in the King's Guard. My name is Kip. What do you want? Why are you here?"

(I told you. I need to get to the Castle. To save Michael.)

_The Clock is ticking_. "You are here to fight for a child? But that doesn't make any sense." Kip was at a loss. People who chose to fight were placed outside the Labyrinth and given thirteen hours to reach the centre. Those were the rules. They had been that way all of her life and probably for hundreds of years before.

(It's complicated.)

"It must be." So, this was the His Majesty's doing. But that still didn't explain why this person, this human person, was in partial possession of Kip's body.

(Look, Kim…)

"Kip."

(Kip. I need to get to the Castle. There is a little girl out there trying to save her baby brother. She's only six years old. She needs help. I did what I had to do, I told that bastard…)

"_You will not speak of the King in that tone,_" Kip spat at the inner self. That was the voice that made her recruits cringe in fear.

(I have no reason to like him.)

"He is my King. And, while you are here, he is yours. Treat him with respect."

(What the hell for? He's not done me any favours dumping me here. I know I said I'd be a citizen of this damn place, but I…)

"You are bound, then. His Majesty does only what is asked of him."

The voice – Sarah - sighed. (I suppose you're right. Will you help me then?)

"Will I help you what? Betray my King?"

(Please, Kip. Alice wished Michael away, but she didn't mean it. I can't let him be stuck here. I saw those stupid, drooling creatures the last time – how can I let Michael get turned into one of them?)

Kip bit her tongue. This Sarah seemed oblivious to the insult, so it would probably do Kip no good to point it out. Besides, there was such a tone of desperate pleading in the woman's voice. "I will not betray my King," she said levelly.

(I'm sorry.) Sarah's voice was tired. (This must be as weird for you as it is for me. But look, I need your help and I guess the sooner we get this done, the sooner you can be rid of me.)

"How do you know that? Did you tell His Majesty that you would become a citizen of the Labyrinth?"

(Yes. To save Alice and Michael. It was the only thing I could offer him.)

"So how do you know that he will not leave you where you are forever?" The thought chilled Kip to the bone. To be stuck with this whining traitor in her head would be unbearable.

(I didn't really think beyond helping the children. I'm so sorry. Do you think that you're being punished too?)

Punished? What had she done that warranted this? "His Majesty would not… would probably not do that to me." Kip hated the moment of hesitation, but it was possible, she supposed. Or maybe this was a test of her loyalty. The King expected more from the Changed, after all. "Very well," she said. "I will aid you, but I will not commit treason. You will play by the rules. I won't let you cheat, and I won't let you hurt my King."

(But there's so little time…)

"Then you will find it easier without me fighting you. Now you will let me dress, and you will let me eat."

(We don't have time!)

"The longer you argue, the longer it will take. Do you want me to help you or not?"

(I'm not a goddamn child!) A pause. (Forgive me. I'm just worried about Alice. This place is deadly.)

Kip was about to protest, then a flicker of images ran through her mind – a young human woman running from the cleaners, being chased through the Forest, falling helplessly into the Oubliette, her long dark hair tangling, green eyes wide with fear. "You've been here before," Kip said slowly, "when you were…"

(I was fifteen. A little old for fairy tales, I guess, but this place was tricky for me. It'll be hell for Alice, she's just a baby.)

"The Labyrinth is as dangerous as it needs to be. Now, will you be quiet and let me get up?"

(Okay.)

Sarah was quiet while Kip gobbled a hasty bowl of porridge and scrambled into her working armour – a toughened leather breastplate, sturdy breeches and boots. The full metal armour was excellent protection in battle but horribly heavy to wear for any length of time. As she fastened her sword, she could feel the woman fidgeting. It was very disconcerting.

"What?"

(Could we take some clothes for Alice, please? She's only wearing a nightshirt and her feet are bare.)

Kip bundled a spare pair of leggings and a pair of socks into a bag. "Don't know how I'm going to explain this to anyone," she muttered. Curse it all, she didn't need this. Part of her was tempted to walk into the Castle and ask His Majesty why exactly he had chosen to saddle a lowly Guard with such a burden. He would probably be angry with her, but at least she would know _why_. Kip had done Castle duty before, she knew the way. The door to the Castle kitchens was just there, after all, then it was an easy three flights of stairs to the throne room, then… Before she was aware of what was happening, the passenger had taken these thoughts and –

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- Sarah was running through the Castle kitchens, past the bewildered, sleepy cooks and up the servants' stairs. In the back of her mind, she could hear the howled protests of the Guardswoman. _No! Stop this! Stop this NOW!_ But if she ignored them, and didn't think of how these legs were far shorter than her own, and how odd it was that she knew the way so well, she was fine. Absolutely fine. Finally, up a last flight of stairs, stumbling now, she was into the throne room. Now _this_ place she recognised. It was possibly the same rags and debris that graced the corners, definitely the same imposing seat in the centre. Luckily, the place was as empty as it had been the last time she was here; although that time, she had been with friends and now she was with some stupid, ugly creature who -

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- fought with every scrap of herself to win her body back. Just when she had started to trust this passenger, the human showed her true colours. Kip would not be fooled again. She staggered across the stone floor, struggling for balance as Sarah tried to regain control. One hand caught hold of a dusty cloth and it fell in a choking heap, taking Kip with it. She flailed around in the musty cloth, coughing desperately, her eyes streaming. Sarah stopped fighting her long enough to let her free herself and wipe her streaming eyes. Then they both forgot about fighting altogether.

The object that they had freed was a vast mirror. Two figures, dishevelled and red-eyed, stared in disbelief out of the glass. Kip turned her head quickly to one side, but there was no one else in the room. Back in the mirror, Sarah's reflection reached out a hand to someone who wasn't really there.

(I can see myself. Am I free?) The voice was still in Kip's head but the reflection's lips were moving. It was horribly disorientating.

"You're not free out here," Kip said. "Now let's get out of here before…"

"I see your pledge of loyalty was rather short-lived," came a cool voice behind her. Only Kip and Sarah stood in the mirror but when Kip spun around this time, the King was standing right behind her. She dropped to one knee and could feel Sarah fighting every instant of the motion.

"Your Majesty, I'm sorry, I failed you," she said hurriedly, "but please don't doubt my loyalty. The human woman…"

"The human woman is the only one I doubt."

(That figures. Well, all's fair in love and war, buster.) Kip winced at Sarah's scathing tone. She just hoped that His Majesty couldn't hear it.

"Oh really?" he replied, and that particular hope went down in flames. "Which is this?"

Sarah said nothing, but Kip could feel her seething. Under it all, though, was the faintest thread trailing off into a yawning abyss of terror. The woman was only keeping the most fragile hold on her emotions, concentrating on her fury and pretending the fear wasn't there. Kip wondered what had happened the last time Sarah had been in the Labyrinth, and couldn't help but feel a spark of admiration. If the experience had truly been so horrific, Sarah was showing incredible bravery by coming back.

The King touched Kip's bent head briefly. "You may rise, Kip," he said. "I have no question as to your loyalty. That is the reason that you have been chosen for this task." He turned her gently back to the mirror. Now there were three forms in the glass.

Kip didn't dare turn back to see what was going on in the room. She concentrated on the three images, mute with awe that the King had remembered her name.

"Sarah, I would like you to meet Sergeant-at-Arms Kip. She is a member of my Guard, she is brave, she is loyal and she is your keeper for the next eleven hours and six minutes. Kip, this is Sarah Williams. She feels that it wouldn't be _fair_ to let the little girl Alice battle the Labyrinth on her own, so has taken it upon herself to help. I believe you both know who I am. Are we all clear now?"

Kip wasn't clear at all, but would rather be dangled by her feet over the Bog than say so. But, (why did you do this to me?) the reflected Sarah demanded.

King Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I have lived a great many years and I hold more than a passing familiarity with the duplicity of women."

(Duplicity? _You_ are accusing _me_ of duplicity? All I want is to help Alice and Michael, and you've put me into the body of some stupid, slobbering goblin! Where is the rest of me? What the hell have you done with my body?)

"Even the Born are not stupid and slobbering," Kip began hotly, "and I am Changed. I understand that you're angry, Sarah, but do not…"

(How could you understand? You don't know how I feel! You're not even human!)

"Do not speak to Kip like that," Jareth said, quiet menace in his tone. "She understands more than you think. She is Changed, after all."

(Changed into what?)

"Not into what, Sarah. _From_ what. Kip was born human."


	4. Three: In Wonderland

_Disclaimer: _The Labyrinth and everything related to it are not mine. I am making no money from this piece of fiction, which is a pity because my pay frankly sucks.

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Three – In Wonderland

"…_never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."  
_– _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)_

There are moments in every child's life which change their entire world. These aren't those moments which enrapture adults, such as first steps or first words. These moments are far more fundamental, and one of the most eye-opening, the most life-changing, the most _frightening_ is this realisation - that grown-ups aren't always right. Sometimes they don't know things. Sometimes they are mistaken.

And sometimes they lie.

As terrible as it is to know that grown-ups can be wrong, it is still more terrible to realise that some of the things that they tell you are simply not true. Six years old is very young to find out that your mommy, your daddy-who-isn't-your-real-daddy and your beloved Auntie Sarah have been telling you lies all of your life. So little wonder, then, that Alice was crying steady, bewildered tears which blurred the changing landscape. She was scarcely aware when the carpet under her bare feet was transformed into dirt and scrubby grass. Through her tears and the sudden appearance of sunrise over a dark, never-ending wall, Alice could hear the Goblin King pronouncing sentence on her.

"You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before your baby brother becomes one of us forever."

Alice was sure that she had never heard the words before, but they held a strange familiarity. It was all very confusing. Maybe the words had been in one of Auntie Sarah's stories. Alice loved those stories, the multitudes of worlds and characters, the battles, the challenges, once-upon-a-time right through to happy-ever-after. But even though Auntie Sarah had told her a hundred stories, many of them full of goblins, she had always been sure to tell Alice that the stories were make-believe.

"There's no such thing as goblins, not really," Mommy would say, "so don't be scared."

Then, "Your Auntie Sarah used to tell me stories about goblins when I was little," Daddy Toby said. "They have an evil King who rules them all."

And after that, Auntie Sarah would spin another tale about the goblins and their ugly, evil King and Alice would shiver with that delicious fear which only comes when you know that it's okay to be scared because they're just stories. They're not real. But Mommy was wrong, and Daddy Toby was wrong, and Auntie Sarah was wrong. The goblins _were_ real. They were real and they had taken Michael away. Their King had come and he had told Alice to go into the Labyrinth if she wanted to see Michael again. Auntie Sarah was so mad at him, but really really scared too, then the evil King had been hurting her and Alice had felt the words come out.

"I'll do it." _I'll go into the Labyrinth. I'll find Michael. Just don't hurt Auntie Sarah any more_.

The Goblin King had put a hand on her shoulder, his cloak had swung forward so that Alice couldn't see much of the room. She had heard Auntie Sarah say her name, and she'd tried to look back but all she could see was the long black cloak. That was when she realised that Auntie Sarah couldn't help her any more and that was when the tears started.

That was when it had finally struck Alice that Auntie Sarah had lied to her.

If Alice had been a little older, it might have occurred to her that, since Sarah had lied about the goblins being real, she may also have lied about their King being evil. She might even have wondered why exactly Sarah was so vehement about the unreality of her tales. After all, most adults prefer children to enjoy their fantasy worlds while they can. The way that Sarah wove her stories so adeptly then tore holes in them was unfair, perhaps even cruel. Of course, while Alice may have thought of these things, the Goblin King's actions hardly showed him in a kind light. He had, after all, abducted her brother, threatened her Auntie Sarah and frightened the life out of Alice herself. And now, at the perimeter wall of the Labyrinth, his voice was harsh.

"If you want to find your brother, I suggest that you don't waste time snivelling."

Alice looked up sharply, squinting into the hazy light. Despite the fact that she and Sarah were not related by blood, they shared a similar stubborn spark, and a similar temper. "You're nasty," she decided. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightshirt and determinedly turned her back on her captor.

"I am as nasty as I need to be," the Goblin King said softly. "Remember that."

Alice couldn't help but look back over her shoulder, but he was gone. She wiped her face again and padded up to the wall. From left to right, as far as she could see, there was no door, only endless brown stone. How was she supposed to get through the Labyrinth when she couldn't even get into it? It wasn't fair. Alice stamped her foot on the sandy ground and was startled when a host of tiny lights sprung up in the low bushes by the wall. She peered closer.

The bushes themselves were utterly unremarkable, stunted and brownish, but lying languidly along stems and across leaves were tiny forms. One diminutive woman sat up and stared at the little girl, her diaphanous wings opening to shimmer in the morning sun. Alice reached out a tentative hand. _Fairies_. Goblins in all of their ugliness were frighteningly real, but these beautiful things were real too. Maybe this dream world wasn't so bad after all. The fairy woman stepped delicately onto Alice's open palm and allowed herself to be lifted to eye level. She smiled. Alice smiled back, entranced by the living miniature with the merry eyes and long white-blonde hair. Then, suddenly, the fairy darted forward and pulled a curl of Alice's hair. Hard. Alice let out a howl of pain and dropped her to hang in the air on fluttering wings, laughing. Before Alice knew what was happening, the air around her was thick with the hum of wings and shrill laughter. Tiny hands grabbed at her hair and poked her face. Slapping the swarming fairies away, Alice ran blindly along the side of the Labyrinth, gasping, sobbing, her bare feet scratched and sore from the rough path. What a horrible place this was! Her headlong flight came to an abrupt end when she barrelled into something and fell heavily to the ground.

_Something_ turned out to be some_one_. "Hey, watch where yer goin'!" a gruff voice complained. Then, "Hold still and shut yer eyes."

Alice's eyes were closed anyway, but she scrunched them tighter. Liquid misted onto her head, she heard a high-pitched cry and the hands that had been clenched in her hair let go. She brushed at her head and felt it mercifully free of fairies.

"You can get up and open yer eyes now," the voice said. It was still gruff, but also kind, so Alice thought it would be okay to obey it.

There was a little old man standing in front of her, clutching an old-fashioned spray gun, or maybe he was a little old goblin. Whatever he was, he wasn't much taller than Alice herself. Bright blue eyes shadowed by enormous, bushy white eyebrows peered from a face full of wrinkles. Sparse white hair straggled from under a battered skull-cap to fall halfway down his back. The… goblin? …dwarf? …_person_ bent awkwardly to pick up a deckchair which was tipped onto its side. He had obviously been sitting in that when Alice ran into him. Feeling guilty, she went to help.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," the grumpy character snapped, struggling with the chair. When he eventually righted it, he set it back against the Labyrinth wall, lowered himself in and, sighing deeply, closed his eyes.

"Thanks for helping me, Mister," Alice said. "I thought fairies were nice."

The piercing eyes opened again. "Huh, that just shows what _you_ know," the old creature said. "An' tain't Mister, it's just Hoggle."

Undeterred by the grouchy tone, Alice held out her hand. "I'm Alice," she said. "Thank you, Hoggle."

Hoggle was short but his hand engulfed the girl's. He shook it carefully. "Aye, whatever," he said. "Now let me get back to sleep."

Alice stood for a moment, regarding him. _Shows what _you_ know. _One of Auntie Sarah's stories had been about fairies which looked pretty but bit people, she remembered suddenly. And one of the stories had been about a grumpy dwarf with a heart of gold. "My Auntie Sarah told me about you," she said slowly, "but she said you weren't real."

"Well then, your Auntie Sarah don't know _nothin_'," Hoggle said, without opening his eyes. "I's as real as you. And I needs some sleep."

"She said this was all just stories, but it isn't," Alice continued. "She said there was a Goblin City and an evil King and lots of goblins and there was a… a person like you who helped people. But she said it wasn't real."

Hoggle gave a put-upon sigh and heaved himself back out of the deckchair. "Look, it's real. The Labyrinth's real, I's real, the King's certainly real and you seem to be real too because yer _really_ annoying me." He poked a large finger at the little girl, emphasising each point. "An' I don' care what yer Auntie Sarah…" He stared at Alice for a long time. "Yer Auntie Sarah? _Sarah_?"

Alice nodded mutely.

"_Sarah_ told you about me? She said I weren't real?"

Alice nodded again.

"Why would she do that? Why would she say I weren't real?" Hoggle's eyes were suspiciously bright. He glanced toward the Labyrinth wall as though he could see through it to the Castle. "Did she say all of us're stories, then?"

"She never told me your name, she just made up stuff for me, and she said it was all just stories." Alice said quickly, then something made her add, "Maybe she was scared."

"Scared," Hoggle mused. "But _why_? He tried to stop us seein' her, but we all waited til he wasn't looking, then when we tried she just wasn't there any more." He looked down into Alice's puzzled face. "Yer Auntie Sarah was here a long time ago," he said. "A long time. She came to rescue her brother, can't remember what... ah, Toby 'is name was, that's right. She were my best friend. Curse it, I miss 'er."

_Daddy Toby?_ Auntie Sarah had been in the Labyrinth? Alice didn't know what to say, so she stood silently as Hoggle stared into space. She was dirty already, her feet hurt and she had grazed a knee on the deckchair, but Hoggle's sadness seemed so immense that Alice's pain felt like nothing. Until she remembered Michael. "Hoggle?" she said quietly.

"Yeah, what?" Hoggle snapped, wiping his eyes on a grubby sleeve.

"I have to get into the Lab'rinth. He took my brother and I have to save him. Can you help me, please?"

Hoggle gawped at her for a moment then began to chuckle. "Well, yer certainly more polite than yer Auntie Sarah was," he said. "But I ain't goin' gallivantin' about at my time o' life. Seein' as how you asked so nicely though, you gets in _there_." He pointed to a spot behind Alice where what had been blank wall a moment before was now an imposing set of ornate doors. Hoggle stumped up to them and smacked them firmly with a large hand. They swung open with a silence that was somehow more ominous than a haunted-house creak. "I don't reckon yer any less stubborn than she was, but I'll tell you anyway. It's not a nice place. Yer best off out of it."

"I don't want to go, but he said I have to or he'll make Michael into a goblin," Alice said in a small voice. She peered through the doors. Dank passages stretched as far as she could see in either direction.

Hoggle shrugged. "There's worse things to be. An' before you ask, I wouldn't go either way."

Alice looked back at him. Unimpressive as the outside of the Labyrinth was, it seemed a whole lot more pleasant than the inside. "Goodbye Hoggle," she said, then added impulsively, "You can be my friend too, if you like." Frightened again, she hugged him tightly, and was startled when he whispered in her ear, "_Go right, it worked for her_." Then he shuffled back to his deckchair. Alice walked into the Labyrinth, obediently turning right, and the vast doors shut behind her.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Sarah wasn't sure how someone who technically had no body to call her own could be stunned into immobility, but she was. She gaped at the figure beside hers in the mirror. Kip had been born _human_? Until just a moment ago, she hadn't really taken into account that little line in the tale – _the King would keep the baby and turn it into a goblin_– she had thrown it in to make the story that much more dramatic. It hadn't occurred to her that it might be true. _Yeah, right, cos the Labyrinth and the Goblin King and all that, that wasn't true, was it?_ So Kip had been abducted as a baby but her big sister – or her brother or parents, or even her babysitter – whoever it was, they hadn't been able to rescue her. Sarah thought about all the near-misses she'd had inside the Labyrinth's walls. Maybe she'd been lucky. Part of her wanted to ask what happened to the ones who entered the Labyrinth and failed to reach the Castle, but another part really didn't want to know.

"Were you all human?" she asked finally.

The goblin woman's reflection gave hers a scornful look. "Don't you listen at all? I am Changed, but most of the population are Born. How many children do you think are given to us?"

Sarah hadn't thought about it at all. She wondered now if Kip missed her human family, or if she remembered them at all, but it seemed far too personal a question. The Goblin King was still standing behind her and Kip, and it was making her distinctly nervous. As if he could sense her discomfort, he gave her a broad and sunny smile.

"Do you want a history lesson now, Sarah? I'm sure it would ease your transition into life in the City. Maybe I'll even give you a choice of forms when you're Changed."

Changed? He was going to make her into a goblin for real? Sarah whirled to confront him, forgetting that she was only real in the mirror and –

Kip nearly fell as Sarah turned around. It was so tricky dealing with the human woman as a passenger. His Majesty had given her this task because he trusted her, she didn't want to look clumsy. Sarah's rage battered against the inside of Kip's head.

(He's going to make me into a bloody goblin? I'm going to be stuck like this! That son-of-a-bitch!)

"Sarah, please." Kip didn't know how to speak to Sarah without speaking aloud, but she was pretty sure the King could hear Sarah's thoughts even when he wasn't looking at her in the mirror. If they managed to get through the next eleven hours without Kip going completely insane or being put to death for treason, it would be a miracle. "Your Majesty, I…"

A raised hand halted her. "Sergeant, may I suggest that you endeavour to control your ward? Her attitude is beginning to tire me."

(Yeah? Well tough, you'd better…)

_SARAH!_ Kip forced the thought toward the resentful presence. _You're here for a reason. If I am thrown into the Bog, how far will you get?_ Sarah's attitude was beginning to tire Kip as well, even if she was aware that most if it was bravado. She was reminded of a young recruit standing at the edge of the Forest, declaring loudly that there was nothing to be scared of, come on, let's go you bunch of cowards! As the King took a step toward her, she felt Sarah cringe back.

"Sarah, I warned you not to concern yourself with this, but you insisted on meddling. You have had every chance to walk away but you chose to be here. You chose to become a citizen of the Labyrinth. You knelt before me and declared yourself my subject. It was your choice. You have given yourself to the Labyrinth and you have given yourself to _me_. Your choice, remember?" The King's voice was low and calm, but with such a threatening edge that Kip was suddenly scared for her life, even though the words were not meant for her. "Did you really think that you could just walk back in here and pick up the baby? After your passionate pleas that you would give up _anything_, even your own life, did you think that I would make it so easy? Did you?"

Sarah was deadly quiet. Kip felt a brief flash of compassion, coupled with a guilty relief that, appearances aside, His Majesty was not actually talking like that to her.

"Of course, you did expect it easy, didn't you? Like the last time." The King's mouth twisted in a smile that held no trace of amusement. "But never let it be said that I am not generous. I will give you another chance. Tell me now that you wish to go back to your safe little life, and I will send you."

(What about Alice and Michael?)

"Theirs is a separate story, and you know that."

(Then I can't go.) Kip wasn't sure if Sarah herself had sensed that tiny, buried desire to take the offer, to run home with her eyes closed, praying that it was all a dream. (Don't offer me what I can't take.)

"There is quite a difference between can't and won't, Sarah."

Kip felt Sarah looking up at the Goblin King through her eyes. (Sometimes, there's no difference at all,) Sarah whispered.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Alice had heard the expression 'walls have ears' but here in the Labyrinth, they had eyes too. Gnarled green plants clung to the damp-looking stone, stretching out curious stems to stare at her as she passed. Alice was sure that the plants were muttering to themselves, a sound right on the edge of hearing. Although the sun had risen before she had come through the doors, the walls here were so high that the long passage was shrouded in darkness. Clinging shreds of mist brought a chill to the air and made the walls glitter strangely. Last night – or was it this morning? – Auntie Sarah had asked Alice if she wanted to wear her pyjamas to bed. Laughing, she had refused, running about the bedroom in her underwear until Sarah had scooped her up, blowing raspberries on her stomach, striking a deal that maybe, just maybe it was okay to wear her nightshirt just as long as she went to bed and was good. She had been good, more or less, and where had it got her? Better, perhaps, to have been bad and to have been standing here wearing cosy pyjamas.

Another twig scraped at the little girl's bare legs and she whimpered. Hoggle had said Auntie Sarah had been in the Labyrinth before, to rescue her brother Toby. And she must have found her way through because Toby was Daddy Toby now, he wasn't a goblin. Sarah had come this way, and it had been the right way. But how far had she walked? Alice didn't know what a Labyrinth was exactly, but she thought it was a bit like the maze that Mommy and Daddy Toby had taken her to at the park last year. Auntie Sarah had refused to come in, she remembered. When they had all come out, breathless and giggling from running about the hedges, Auntie Sarah had hugged them all very hard, as though they had been gone for hours and hours. Daddy Toby said she was closter… something, which was why she didn't like being in the maze, but it looked like Auntie Sarah was just plain afraid of mazes. In that maze, though, there had been turns and corners all over the place to get everybody nice and lost. Here, there was just the endless passage and the unchanging walls. Alice's feet really hurt now. Climbing over a stray branch, she stumbled and banged the knee that she had scraped on Hoggle's deckchair. It was all too much. Alice slumped to the cold stone floor and began to cry.

"'Allo," said a cheerful little voice right by her ear.

Alice screamed and jerked away from the wall, looking around frantically. There was nobody there, unless the lichen had decided to talk as well as stare. "Hello?" Alice said cautiously to it.

"Down 'ere," said the voice again. Alice looked down. On a small ledge in the wall was a worm, but not like the worms that Alice had seen in the garden. For a start, it was a lot bigger, and it had a smiling little face topped with a fan of electric blue hair. And it was wearing a red baseball cap. Backwards. "Cheer up, love, it might never 'appen," said the worm.

"You're a worm," said Alice.

"S'right, last time I checked," the worm said. "Fancy a beer, or is it a bit early for you?"

"A beer? That's for grownups." Daddy Toby drank beer sometimes, but Mommy said it tasted horrid and bitter.

"Yeah? I'm grown up! I am!" the worm said belligerently. "I'm just short for me height. Er…" It gave what was probably a shrug, given that worms don't have shoulders. "Cup o' tea then?"

Alice shook her head. "No thank you. I need to find my brother."

"Me folks are out, we can watch the telly," the worm said. "We've got cable." He winked. "Cartoon Network, go on, you know you want to."

"No thank you," Alice said again, "but can you tell me how to get into the Lab'rinth. I can't find the turning."

"Dunno mate, me folks know their way about but I'm grounded. Tell you what though, me dad's got a map. Come in, put your feet up an' have a glass of milk or summat, I'll have a butcher's for it. You look knackered."

Alice only understood about half of what the worm was saying, but she was very tired and thirsty. She took a step toward the wall where the worm was sitting. "But how do I get in? I won't fit."

The worm looked up at Alice, then toward the hole in the wall, then back up at Alice. He turned his head as if measuring her, muttering under his breath, then returned his gaze to the hole. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Right. Right right right. Righty-ho. Back in a mo." He disappeared into the hole.

Alice sat down and waited. There was a distant sound of someone rummaging about, then a muttered _a-ha!_ Maybe the worm had found the map. The rummaging noise resumed, then a creak like a chair, then Alice could swear she heard the noise of a tiny television tuned to the Cartoon Network. "Excuse me?" Alice called out.

"Oh yeah, right, be right with you," the worm called back. He didn't emerge, and the cartoon noises continued. Alice sighed and picked up a bit of twig, twirling it around her fingers. What was the worm doing? Was he watching cartoons while she was stuck in this cold, damp passageway? Angrily, she threw the twig at the opposite wall.

It disappeared.

Alice stood slowly and walked toward the wall, hands outstretched. At the point where her fingers should have met stones, there was a curious tingling, then she was standing in another passage. Alice glanced back toward the worm's house, just in case he had come back out, but there was no sign of him. She looked left then right down the new passage. They both looked the same. Alice vaguely remembered Mommy saying something about always turning the same way in the maze, but she wasn't sure. Maybe she should wait for the worm with his map. A few minutes more, and she decided that he wasn't coming back at all. Hoping that Mommy had been right, she set off down the right-hand passage.

Five minutes later, the worm emerged from the hole. "Sorry 'bout that, 'adn't seen that one but there's an ad break and… 'Allo? Where'd you get to? D'you want the bleedin' map or what?" He looked up and down the passage but couldn't see the little girl anywhere. "Sod ya then," he muttered.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Sarah was silent and unresisting as Kip bowed low before the Goblin King, then left the throne room. What was she going to do? The anger that had fuelled her battle with Kip and her desperate run for the Castle had burned so hot and fierce that it had used itself up, leaving her with nothing but ashes of defeat and despair. Every time she faced the Goblin King, it seemed that the only way to mask her fear was to hide it behind defiance. She hadn't been this afraid of him before, had she? He had been intimidating and awe-inspiring, but had he really been as terrifying as this? But back then, she had faced him as a girl on the brink of womanhood, alight with curiousity and wonder, heedless of the danger when the story was so entrancing. Now she knew the consequences. She had seen beyond happy ever after, what happened when the princess woke up with a prince who was also a man, what happened when the glorious battle was won and the dead must be counted. Happy ever after lasted a day, an hour, mere moments.

"Sarah?" Kip was sitting on the edge of the water trough in the courtyard, that place where Sarah had been plunged back into the world which was past and present, discovery and denial, dream and nightmare. She was looking down into the water again, probably because it made it easier to pretend that they were two separate people.

(I'm here,) Sarah said wearily.

"What do you want to do now?"

(I want to wake up.) She stared into the water. Kip's reflected face was a mixture of concern and confusion. (I don't know where to start.)

"The Labyrinth has rules, no matter who is inside it. We should start at the beginning," Kip said logically.

(But Alice could be anywhere. She's been in here two hours already. One wrong turn and I could lose her forever.)

"True. But if we sit here for the rest of the day, there is no chance. I won't betray my King, but I will help you. The Labyrinth might help you too."

(The _Labyrinth_ might help me?)

Kip shrugged. "It has… a sense about it. It has been here for a very long time, and it's so full of magic that it… not thinks exactly but… Look, Sarah, I'm just a soldier. I don't understand the Labyrinth. Only His Majesty knows how it works, how it behaves."

(I'm not asking him about anything.) Sarah sighed. (Right. You're right. We should go. I guess you know a shortcut out of the whole Labyrinth. Everyone I met the last time seemed to know how to get _out_ of it just fine.)

"Of course. And on the way, you can tell me what happened the last time you were here."

(I don't want to think about it. It brings back…) _darkness fear pain_ (…difficult memories.)

"The Labyrinth is as difficult as it needs to be. You were older than the girl who is here now, right? It won't be the same for her."

Sarah shivered. (I hope not. I really hope not. Maybe it'll just be an adventure for her. They say children cope better, don't they? Maybe after, she won't…) _Maybe after, she won't fall apart. Maybe after, she will still be herself. Maybe after, she will still be whole._

Kip hurried through the Goblin City, her short legs covering the ground surprisingly fast. By the City wall, she came to a small courtyard with a doors down three sides. At its entrance, she was stopped by another of the Guard who saluted respectfully.

"State yer bus'ness, Sergeant." The hulking goblin in the ill-fitting armour gave her a shy grin. "That all right?" he whispered.

(Does he know you?)

_Of course, I trained him. Now hush._ "That was fine, Furlock. Outer perimeter gate, please."

"Right y'are." Furlock turned to study a sundial set in front of a large stone map. "So at this time… which is just past…" He touched a massive taloned finger to the sundial, then traced a symbol on the map. "Then y'go to the col… column for the hour…"

(God almighty, this guy is responsible for the safety of the city? He's a moron. Let me guess, he's not human.)

_None of us is human, but you're right, he's Born. He may be a slow thinker, but he's a quick fighter. Let him work._

"Door five," the big Guard said triumphantly and saluted again.

Kip saluted back. "Carry on, soldier," she said, making her way into the courtyard. Above each door was a number. "It's not as simple as it looks, Sarah," Kip said softly. "You know how the Labyrinth changes. These doors lead to different places depending on the time of day." She opened the fifth door. "And none of them come back the same way."

(That's crazy! How can a passage lead one way but not the other?)

"Because this is the Labyrinth. Nothing is what it seems."

(And you can't take anything for granted,) Sarah answered sourly. (I remember. How long will this take?)

"Long enough for you to tell me something about the last time you were here."

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Not far down the new passage, the ways branched and Alice saw the first pointing hand, a stone finger protruding from the wall to point down one arm of the passage. Not knowing what else to do, she followed it. A few more twists and turns, and she caught sight of the Castle rising above the walls. That was where Michael was. In fairy stories, the prince had to find the Castle to rescue the princess. Why was it always the silly princess who got locked in the tower or put into a hundred-year sleep, and the prince who had to rescue her? Why couldn't the princess do the rescuing? Auntie Sarah said that all of the fairy tales were written years and years and years ago, when people thought that women were all gentle and fragile, and all men were brave and strong. She said that men liked to be brave, that they wanted a pretty princess who they could rescue. Alice said that men were silly, and she wanted to be a knight who could rescue her own prince. So Auntie Sarah read her a story about Princess Alexa who went on a quest and who saved her brother from a sorceress, and Alice vowed that if there was ever a quest _she _would be the one who went on it. And now here she was, on her way to save her baby brother from the evil Goblin King, just like Alexa would have done.

Alexa wasn't six, though. Alexa was older. And she had proper clothes, and shoes. She had been prepared for her quest. If someone had told Alice that she would be on a quest, she would have brought her sneakers. At least now, there weren't so many broken sticks littering the way. The ground had changed from hard stone to packed sand. Alice's feet still hurt, but they didn't hurt as much. She was getting hungry, though. At the maze in the park, there had been a stand selling ice cream and lemonade, but Alice was pretty sure that in the Labyrinth there was no brightly-coloured booth where the nice man with the funny hat would call her "little lady" and give her extra sprinkles on her ice cream. All there was here was yet another branch in the path, this time without any guiding stone fingers. Alice turned right again. She thought that she could hear Michael crying a long way away, but maybe it was just in her imagination because she felt so bad about wishing the goblins would take him away. She didn't hate Michael really, but he was too small to play and he cried _all the time_ and Mommy was so busy taking care of him. He made Alice cross, but she didn't want him to be turned into a goblin, no matter how annoying he was. At the next branch, Alice turned towards the crying noise, even though it was the left-hand turning. But round the corner and up some steps, there was nothing but a dead end.

Alice wanted to cry again. _If you want to find your brother, I suggest that you don't waste time snivelling._ She sniffed hard, wiped her nose on her filthy sleeve and turned back. The gap that she had just walked through wasn't there any more.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

She told Kip, in the end. It was easier to let the goblin woman have an edited part of the story than for her to find out later on. Sarah wasn't sure how much of her inner thoughts and turmoil Kip could sense. She couldn't read much beyond Kip's surface thoughts, but she was sure that the partnership wasn't equal. This was Kip's body after all. She was a mere passenger, and it would be just the sort of thing that would amuse the Goblin King, to lay Sarah open to a stranger. So she told Kip the story of the teenage girl who wished her brother away in a fit of pique, who battled the Labyrinth, who found friends and who made her way - _though dangers untold and hardships unnumbered - _to the Castle to triumph over its King. It sounded like a fairy tale.

It _was_ a fairy tale. It was a fairy tale of the oldest kind. When Sarah had started writing stories for children, she had studied the origins of her old, beloved tales and had been horrified. Sleeping Beauty hadn't been woken by the Prince's kiss, far from it. He had raped her unconscious body and given her two children. Cinderella's sisters had cut off parts of their feet and had their eyes pecked out by birds. Snow White had watched while the wicked Queen was given red-hot shoes and forced to dance at her stepdaughter's wedding. And she remembered the dancing girl with the red shoes had begging to have her feet cut off, the little mermaid giving up her voice and submitting to agony at every step only to end by casting herself broken-hearted into the sea, Hansel and Gretel's parents leaving them in the forest to perish. But the tales had been sweetened and sanitised by adults who used the excuse that children couldn't face the violence and cruelty, hiding the fact that they were trying to disguise human nature.

"I don't understand," Kip said.

(Understand what?)

"I don't understand why there is so much fear and hate in you now. You won. You were not hurt, your brother was safe."

(It isn't just what happened to me here. It's what… what it made me after.) It was how she had come to see herself as well. Sarah hadn't told Kip about her dream in the enchanted ballroom, or about the offers the King had made her. _The King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl_. That, it turned out, had been the biggest fantasy of them all. (But it made me grow up, it made me realise how much I cared for Toby. I guess that was the point.)

Kip had been human once, but she had never been a human adult. She supposed that it was all too complicated for a goblin to understand, even one who was Changed, so she kept quiet until they reached the outer wall. And there, dozing in his deck chair by the main gate, was the gardener.

(_Hoggle!_)

Kip kicked the chair and the gardener jumped up hastily. "Weren't sleepin', yer Majesty, oh no, just restin' me legs, hard work all this sprayin' an' prunin' an'…" He broke off. "Hang on…"

"King's Guard, Sergeant-at-Arms Kip. But not the King himself," Kip said.

(That's Hoggle. He's still here! I…) _I must speak to him. I can't speak to him. I need to ask him where he was twenty years ago. I don't want to know._

"Hoggle, there was a human child here this morning. Did you show her into the Labyrinth?"

"Might've done," Hoggle said guardedly. "What's it to yer?"

"I… that is His Majesty…"

"I knew it!" Hoggle cried. "It's jest like the last time, he wants me to pretend to be 'er friend an' trick 'er an' then I'll end up trickin' meself an' she'll say we're friends an' then… an' then… she'll jest stop callin'. She'll abandon her friends. Abandon _me_."

Kip's mouth dropped open.

(I didn't abandon him. I _didn't_. Please, Kip, tell him. I called them and they didn't come. _They_ abandoned _me_!)

Kip shook her head against the barrage of hurt from inside and out. "Stop!" she told them both. It was a good thing Sarah had told her story, or Kip would have been totally lost. "Hoggle, I don't want you to pretend anything. I'm not going to interfere, just going to keep an eye on the child."

(Tell him I'm here. Tell him I know Alice.)

"I won't do anythin' to hurt her. She's just a tiny little thing."

"I swear on my sword that I will do my best to keep her from harm. Do you know which way she went?"

Hoggle stared at Kip sullenly for a long moment. "She went right. Jest like her aunt did."

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

The maze had changed. Alice had turned around and the maze had _changed. _Even with the lichen-with-eyes and the worm-that-talked, Alice hadn't thought about how much magic was in the Labyrinth, but now it was changing as she walked through it. How was she supposed to find Michael when that was happening?It wasn't _fair_!

"Where did the maze go?" she demanded of the wall.

"It's a weird thing, that maze," said a voice behind her.

Alice turned back to what had been a blank wall a second ago. Two doors had appeared, guarded by strange characters who looked like life-size goblin versions of playing cards, one in red, one in blue. Each had a long, be-whiskered face whose dignity was compromised by something resembling a jester's hat and was peering out above a large stone shield.

"Aye, weird, but not half so weird as the people in it," said another voice. Alice suddenly realised that there were heads underneath the shields as well, and it was the left-hand one of those who had spoken. He cackled loudly. The other three heads peeked further round the shields and joined in. Alice twisted her head around so that she could look at the guard who had spoken to her.

"Where did you come from?" she asked.

"From outta the stones," intoned one upside-down character.

"Or maybe they come from us," added the other.

"Like the chicken," said the first.

"And the egg," finished the second.

Alice giggled. "You're not an egg."

"And it doesn't look like you're chicken!" quipped the blue upside-downer.

"I'm not a chicken. I'm Alice. What's your name?"

The door guards stared at the little girl for a moment. In all the time that they had been assigned there, posing riddles and making jokes, no one had ever asked their names. "Er… I'm Gawain," said the blue upside-downer. "Him up top is Bors."

"Percival," volunteered his red counterpart. "And he's Bedivere."

Alice shook all of the hands that she could find reaching around the shields, once again twisting herself around so that she could look the upside-down guards in the face. "Can you help me find the Castle?" she asked them.

"Well, the only way is through one of these doors," said Gawain.

"But we should warn you that one of these doors leads to the Castle and the other leads to…" Percival paused dramatically.

The other guards leaned out and waved their hands. "Da da da _dummm_."

"…certain death," Percival continued. The other three made spooky noises and Alice couldn't help but giggle again.

"Which one?" she asked.

"Ah, that's a problem," said Percival. "See, we don't know the way."

"But they do," said Gawain, pointing up to Bors.

"But you can't ask us," Bors said hastily. "You can only ask one of us. It's in the rules."

"And we should warn you," Bedivere continued, "that one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies."

Alice gaped at them. "Which one?" she said again.

"He always lies," Bedivere said, pointing at Bors.

"I do _not_," Bors said indignantly.

"Ooooh, what a lie!"

One always told the truth and one always lied. So they would both say they told the truth. How would she know? She sat on the dusty stone and stared at the guards as Bedivere and Bors continued to bicker, their upside-down companions looking on indulgently. "Does one of you tell the truth and the other one lies too?" Alice asked Gawain and Percival.

"Er…. we both always tell the truth," said Gawain.

"That's right. Both of us," said Percival.

"So which one of them is the liar?"

The two upside-down faces stared at her, astounded, for a moment. Then two fingers crooked round the shields to point at Bedivere.

"What?" he spluttered. "Vile slander. I tell the truth! He's the liar!"

"Sorry, pal, she's got you bang to rights there," Percival said.

"Told you I didn't lie," said Bors smugly.

"How do I get to the Castle?" Alice asked him.

"Through this door, my lady," he said, and stepped aside.

"Thank you very much." Politely, Alice shook each hand again and pushed the door open.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

The lichen rolled their eyes at the Guardswoman who was trotting down the passageway, seemingly talking to herself. The lichen saw a lot of odd things, but they never told a soul.

(Can we ask these plants where she went?)

"I don't speak lichen, but there's a worm village in the wall a little further along. They might know."

(That worm I met was quite helpful, he'll have helped Alice.)

"Sarah, how long do you think worms live for?"

(I hadn't thought. Does time pass the same way here? Hoggle seems so much older, so diminished.)

"I haven't been in the human world since I was a small child, but I think so. And it seems to me that the gardener was very hurt."

(I know.)

Kip stopped. The wall here looked the same as it had for the last endless stretch, but Sarah supposed she knew what she was doing. Kip squatted down and Sarah could suddenly hear what sounded like a television. "Hey!" Kip rapped on the wall. A muffled curse, then the television sound was cut off and a worm emerged. It wasn't the same worm as before. It seemed younger.

"Yeah?" the worm said, then saw the Guard uniform. "I ain't done nuffink," it added defensively.

A teenage worm then, Sarah decided. "Have you seen a human child? A little girl, about my size."

"Might of. Might not."

"Kevin?" Another worm appeared. The one had the same bright blue hair, but restrained with a pink flowered headscarf. "Oh, hello Sergeant. Can we help you? What's he done now?"

"Ain't done _nuffink_. Bloody Guards."

"_Kevin!_ Sorry, Sergeant."

"We… I am looking for a human girl."

"Well, I've been out," said the worm who was almost certainly Kevin's mother. "But Kevin's just been sitting on his backside all morning. Did you see a little girl?"

"Might of," Kevin said again. If he'd had feet, he would have shuffled them.

"Well, if I know you, you did see her, and you probably offered her your dad's beer." Mother worm saw her son's embarrassed squirming. "I knew it! Honestly, Kevin, if I've told you the Eat Me Drink Me rules once, I've told you a hundred times. Never offer big people little drinks, but oh no! You have to go inviting everyone into the house, then before we know it we've got busted ceilings, living room hip-deep in tears, you name it! When was she here? Go on, tell the Sergeant."

"Muuuuum," Kevin moaned and received a stern look from both Kip and his mother. "She was 'ere, but she bugg… erm, she left before I could get the map. But I reckon she went through the opening across, cos I ain't seen 'er since."

"Thank you, madam. Keep out of trouble, Kevin," Kip said severly, then headed across to the opening which Sarah had used twenty-two years previously, promptly taking the right-hand passage.

(How do you know she didn't go left?)

"Because if she did, we would have seen her at the City. That way leads straight to the Castle."

(WHAT?) Sarah fumed for a while, then said, (but she could have just gone straight on.)

"No she couldn't. That passageway usually has a loop. You can get so far, then you keep covering the same ground. And the Labyrinth has memories. It seems that it wants Alice to retrace your steps. Where did you go next?"

Sarah had wandered among the twists and turns, marking her path with lipstick on stones which were switched round or turned over by tiny goblins intent on hindering her every step. She had heard Toby crying, then music, then she had reached the little courtyard with the two odd guards and their riddle. (Oh no. No!) Sarah whispered.

"What's wrong? What happened next, Sarah?"

(The Oubliette. I fell into the Oubliette.)

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Author's Notes:

The story that Alice refers to is _The Lady's Quest – _a short story from the collection _Mainly In Moonlight _by Nicholas Stuart Gray. For some information about the origins of fairy tales, I used _The Classic Fairy Tales_, edited by Iona and Peter Opie. Both of these books are well-loved childhood books of mine and not currently in print, but can be found second-hand. The "Eat Me Drink Me rules" refer, of course, to _Alice In Wonderland_ by Lewis Carroll and if you haven't read that, shame on you.

_Cockney rhyming slang: Butchers - butcher's hook - look (and I can't believe the site won't let me put in an equals sign here!)_

Thank you to everyone for the kind reviews.  
**FuriedFate** and **gideons-inamorata** - yes, the story has been up before. Check my profile for a (pretty poor) reason why.  
**Princess of the Fae** - what happens next? Well, that would be telling!


	5. Four: Tricks and Traps

_Disclaimer:_ - I do not own the Labyrinth, Jareth, Sarah, Toby or the goblins. However, if I win the lawsuit, I should get custody at weekends.

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Four – Tricks And Traps

"_Look into my eyes, I've seen it all. / Hand in hand, together we fall"  
_– _Edge of the World (Faith No More) _

_-X-_

Alice had barely taken a step through the doorway when a hand reached out and grabbed the back of her nightshirt. "Hey!" she yelled indignantly. She had beaten the playing-card guards, Bors had told her that his door was safe. Did _nobody_ in this place play fair? The little girl's struggles stopped abruptly when a pit opened so close to her that her toes stuck over the edge. She swayed forward and two more hands caught a firmer hold of her. Shuffling backward, she looked over her shoulder.

"Ye'd better watch that first step, girlie, it's a bit of a nasty one," said Gawain from somewhere in the region of Alice's knees. One of his hands was holding onto her ankle.

"Aye, and that's the truth," added Bors.

Alice heard the other guards join in with their characteristic chorus of laughter and comment. Cautiously, she edged forward and peered down. The pit was pitch dark and seemingly bottomless, the shadowed doorway only lending enough light for her to make out faint greenish forms protruding from the walls. As her eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, Alice realised that the greenish things weren't lichen, as she had first assumed, but moving hands. One of them waved at her then gave her a cheery thumbs-up. Alice waved back.

"Do I have to go down there?" Alice asked Gawain. She didn't like the dark very much.

"Yes, go down there. It's _great_," came Bedivere's voice from the courtyard. "That's where the Castle is."

"Ignore him," said Percival. "Honestly, Bed, give it up."

Alice looked across the pit. After a few feet of yawning nothingness then a short stone tunnel, the path into the Labyrinth continued. But the pit went right to the edges of the doorway and there was no way Alice could jump it. "How do I get across? Can you help me?"

"Er, sorry, we just do the door riddle thingy," said Bors, "but if you need help, ask the Hands."

"We're Helping Hands," echoed a voice below ground level.

So, "Hello, Hands, I'm Alice. Can you help me?" said Alice.

"Hello Alice. Which way do you want to go? Up or down?"

Alice realised that the hands were joining together to make faces, but she still couldn't figure out how they talked. "I'm already up, and I don't want to go down. Can I go across, please?"

There was a great rustling and murmuring from the pit, a host of voices offering thoughts.

"Across, hmmm?"

"She wants to go across?"

"Very unorthodox, there were only two choices in my day."

"Well, your day is gone."

"May as well, we're just hanging around."

"Speak for yourself, I've nearly finished knitting these socks."

"Across it is…"

Then several greenish palms raised themselves from the pit, forming an eerie bridge. Alice said a final goodbye to the two – or was it four? – guardians of the doors, then made her way across. It was horribly wobbly, even though Alice stuck close to the edge and kept a hand on the stone wall. When she reached the far lip of the pit, those minutes felt like they had taken hours. On shaky legs, Alice bent to thank the Hands for their help, then carried on down the corridor. A faint thread of music drifted down to meet her.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

(Hurry! Hurry up!)

"I _am_ hurrying," Kip panted. "Do you want to run? Oh no, you can't, they're _my_ cursed legs!" She was fit, she had been a Guard all her adult life, but this frantic dash about the Labyrinth was ripping the breath from her lungs. She could feel Sarah's fear bleeding into her own thoughts.

(I'm sorry, but please… I'm out of breath too, isn't that weird?)

"No more so than anything else that's happened to me this morning." Kip stopped, leaning against a wall to catch her breath. Above her head, a stone finger pointed back the way she had come.

(Don't stop! We have to get to Alice.)

"Well, if you knew where you had been, we would have more luck," Kip said scathingly. "This is a Labyrinth, in case you hadn't noticed. There are many turnings, many steps, many courtyards and _most of them look the same_. Added to that, this one has a personality of its own and changes when the mood takes it. Or maybe I'm wrong, and running about like a headless chicken was part of your original strategy."

Sarah was taken aback. Kip had seemed so simple and straightforward, it was a little odd hearing sarcasm from her. (All I can remember is that I tried to turn toward the castle whenever I could, and that I marked the paths with lipstick. Not that it helped any.)

"You marked the paths? I can't see the Mirialis family standing for that."

(Let me guess, little tiny goblins live under the paths? I _knew_ someone was messing with my marks.)

"They would have been very angry with you. They're the caretakers of the Labyrinth."

(I thought the King made it,) Sarah said, forgetting for a moment that she was determined not to mention or think of him.

"His Majesty gives the Labyrinth its energy and life, but he doesn't put every stone together. They say that the Mirialis family has been here since the Labyrinth was made."

(I don't know, I just assumed that he wished it into being or something.) Sarah looked at the twist and turns laid out before them. (It doesn't matter. Can we ask these Mirialis goblins where Alice got to?)

"You, the desecrator of the stonework, are going to ask them for help?"

(No, you, the goblin whose body this is and who is incidentally a member of the Guard, are going to ask them. I'm just going to watch.)

Kip couldn't help but smile. So the annoying human woman actually had a sense of humour. Who would have thought it? She drew her hunting knife and began tapping on the flagstones with the haft. When one rang hollow, she dug in the blade to lever up a corner.

(Can't you just write a lipstick arrow on it? That's what brought them out when I was here.)

"Sarah, I don't even know what lipstick _is_. Ah…"

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

This maze was made up of hedges, rather than stone walls, but it was just as confusing and Alice was more tired than ever. She wondered what time it was and whether Michael was as scared as she was. Did the babies get turned into goblins all at once, or did it happen bit by bit? Maybe, by the time she reached Michael and took him home, he would have long ears or a tail. Much as Alice would like to see that, she didn't want to have to tell Mummy or Daddy Toby how it happened. Would they even believe her? They had seemed so sure that Auntie Sarah's stories had just been made-up things that maybe they would think Alice was making up things too. Alice stopped and turned around on the spot. Were these the same leafy walls as before? They looked the same, but it was so difficult to tell. She had hoped that there would be someone around to help her, like Hoggle or the doorway guardians, but the hedge maze seemed to be deserted.

"Where is everybody?" Alice pondered aloud.

Although part of her was hoping that someone would answer, she was still surprised to hear a noise, almost a touch of music. If not for her rude awakening by the walls of the Labyrinth, Alice might have said that it sounded like fairy bells. The tinkly noise came closer, skipping occasionally as though whatever was making the sound was bumping over the uneven ground. 

Alice glanced around curiously - surely the thing should be right upon her by now - but couldn't see anything. The tinkling came again, an indignant tone right at Alice's feet. When she looked down, she was disappointed to see that it was nothing more than a palm-sized crystal ball. A pretty, sparkling bubble, but it couldn't help Alice find her brother and she was running out of time. With a weary sigh, Alice picked a random opening in the hedge and headed towards it.

_jingle jingle jingle_

Alice stopped and looked down. The crystal hadn't changed position, but it was rocking gently. It may not have a voice, but it had very clearly just said 'no'. Alice took a cautious step back. The crystal moved encouragingly toward a different gap in the hedge. It looked like the way Alice had come, but it was so hard to be sure. Besides which, nothing in this place was what it seemed - the same passage didn't necessarily lead to the same place. The crystal paused.

_Come on... this way... _

Alice took another couple of tentative steps.

_Yes, that's right... Come on... _

A new guide was a dream come true. Sarah could have told Alice a hundred cautionary tales about dreams that came in magical spheres, but Sarah was a long way behind the little girl in a body not her own. Alice was alone; confused, tired and scared. There was no trace of dread as she followed the crystal down a familiar-unfamiliar leafy passage, only relief.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

She should have known that any creature so intimately involved in the creation of the Labyrinth would be foul-mouthed and contrary. Sarah didn't precisely understand what Iseana Mirabilis had said but from the tone and from Kip's sense of indignation, it was reasonably obvious that the miniature goblin wasn't inclined to be helpful, even to a member of the Guard. In better circumstances, the sight of the tiny fist being waved in frantic accompaniment to the stream of high-pitched profanity would have been amusing, but Sarah was far too aware of time slithering through her insubstantial grasp. She could almost hear the tick tick tick of the Goblin King's disappearing, reappearing, cheating clock. Kip, meanwhile, hung onto her patience with admirable restraint and finally managed to extract some useful information.

"She's not in the Oubliette, although the trapdoor did open a while ago. Iseana doesn't know where exactly Alice is, but if anyone had fallen into the Oubliette, the Mirialis family would know."

(She could be anywhere.)

"She'll be in the hedge maze."

(You don't know that.)

"Why else would the trapdoor open if not to trap someone?"

(But you said...)

"She didn't fall through the door. She must be across the other side."

Sarah was torn between relief, indignation and guilt. How was it that she had fallen into the Labyrinth's trap when a six-year-old child had evaded it with ease? Suddenly, Kip's earlier comment came back to her mind. _The Labyrinth is as dangerous as it needs to be._ Twenty years ago, Sarah had had the feeling that something - fate, the Goblin King, the Labyrinth itself - was trying to teach her a lesson. Now she was sure of it. A piece of cake? Tricks and traps and poisoned peaches. Danger and treachery masquerading as beautiful promises. And suddenly Sarah wasn't sure if she was thinking of the Labyrinth or its king. Over the years, she had managed to wrap the Labyrinth in pretty packaging labelled 'Fairytale'. But the stories had exploded out of their box, never to be shut away again, and Sarah was finding it increasingly easy to lose herself, lose control, lose her mind. She gave herself a mental shake. No time for that, dammit, no time.

(What's the quickest way there? There's a shortcut, right?)

Kip glanced up at the sky, muttering under her breath. Sarah was about to interrupt, assuming that the guardswoman was cursing her impatient passenger, then she caught the thread of Kip's thoughts. Time. Sarah hadn't seen such a thing as a watch in the Labyrinth - although she had hardly been looking for one, she was sure she would have been struck by the incongruity of it. The only way that she had been able to track the passage of time before had been her progressive hunger and weariness, her increasing sense of urgency and _his_ horrible clock. Goblins, deprived of the myriad timepieces of human existence, apparently had excellent internal clocks.

Sarah sensed a bewildering array of doors and passageways before Kip said, "No. I'm sorry Sarah. But we're quite close to the door that Alice took."

(Okay, if that's the only way, let's go.) Sarah tried to keep the dread out of her voice. Logic told her that she hadn't spent long in the Oubliette, but it had felt like an eternity alone in the dark.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

_...tinkle skip tinkle tinkle skip ... _

The crystal moved just fast enough that Alice had to hurry to keep up with it. She wasn't quite out of breath, but nor did she have the energy to keep track of her surroundings or even to wonder where exactly she was being led. The hedge maze passed left right left in a blur of indiscriminate green, the pad of small dirty feet on a thankfully soft dirt floor and the thready non-melody from the shimmering ball. If Alice had been given time to think, it might have occurred to her that the hectic pace was a deliberate attempt to guide her deeper into the Labyrinth, to lead her away from her goal. Instead, she followed blindly until, rounding a sudden corner, she stumbled and the crystal rolled out of sight. Alice gave a wail of distress. Staggering to her feet, she flung herself unsteadily forward and found herself in a small clearing. Another dead end. She realised now, too late, that she was more hopelessly lost than ever before. What had she gained but yet more dirt and bruises, and a long rent in the hem of her favourite nightshirt? Strangely, it wasn't her sore feet or scraped knees that finally brought the tears to Alice's eyes, it was the sight of Barbie's pretty pink dancing slippers filthy and torn beyond repair. She sank back down, a crumpled, dejected heap. This was impossible. She was 

never going to find Michael. What was she going to tell Mommy and Daddy Toby? Alice was sorry, truly sorry, that she had ever wished Michael away. Whatever else he was, no matter how much noise he made or how much attention he got, Michael was still her baby brother. And now the nasty, evil Goblin King was going to turn him into a stupid, smelly goblin. Auntie Sarah might have lied about the Labyrinth being real, but everything else was horribly, cruelly true.

"Snivelling again?" Alice's head snapped up. The Goblin King was lounging elegantly against a vast stone urn which Alice could have sworn wasn't there a second ago. He was dressed differently, she noticed. indoor clothes. Clothes for relaxing, for sitting about laughing at little girls who were lost and alone. "So, child, are you having jolly fun in my Labyrinth?" The Goblin King gave Alice a wide, predatory smile then turned his attention to the crystal in his hand, spinning it in deft grey-gloved fingers. It took Alice a few moments to realise what - or more precisely who - had brought her to this point but, when she did, anger and defiance swallowed the misery.

"You got me lost on purpose!" she accused.

The crystal stopped its mesmerizing pattern. "Who, me? That's a very serious accusation, young lady. I hope that you have some solid evidence to back it up. Well?"

"That... the crystal ball..." Alice pointed at the offending object.

"This?" A fluid spin of the crystal from one hand to the other. "Such a little insignificant thing. Really, Alice, you're not a baby. You should learn to take responsibility for your own actions, no matter how ill-judged they prove to be."

"But... the ball... it told me... I mean it showed... it wanted me to come this way..." Alice faltered under the Goblin King's inquisitive stare.

"Yes...?"

"Nothing." He would just twist anything she would say anyhow. He was a nasty tease, just like Julie Matthews who said she wanted to be Alice's friend then broke her Barbie crayons on purpose.

"Nothing? All that pouting and whining for nothing? And here I was thinking you wanted me to help you."

"You don't want to help me!" Alice burst out. "You're just a big liar!" She would never normally have spoken to a grown-up like that, but the Goblin King wasn't a grown-up somehow. He was... something else.

"Oh Alice, I'm wounded." A grey-clad hand clenched in the ruffled shirt, presumably to indicate the site of the wounding. "Everything I've done is to help you. You're the one who asked me to take the baby, remember?"

"Yes, but..."

"And then you wanted to come into the Labyrinth, into my private kingdom on your little quest..."

"Yes, but I..."

"And now, now, you accuse me of no end of nefarious deeds to cover up your own failures. I'm deeply, deeply hurt, Alice."

Alice didn't know what 'nefarious' meant, but she could make a pretty good guess. She could also recognise an actor and a liar when she saw one. Julie had been just the same. Julie, with her angel's face under the long golden hair, laughing at Alice, then a moment later in tears, lisping sweetly, "It was an accident, Miss, promise." it had been Alice who got told off that day, not Julie. Alice gave the Goblin King a baleful stare. She bet nobody ever told _him_ off, not for _anything_.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. I'll tell you what, let's make a deal. You stop thinking of me as the villain, and I will send you home right now. How about it?" He spun the crystal ball closer and closer, until Alice could see the image that had appeared inside.

Her room. It was her room! The shelf of soft toys, from which a lucky individual would be chosen each night to be Chief Guardian of the Pillows. The delicate canopy bed with its pretty flowered bedspread made by Granny Karen. The bookcase, stuffed to overflowing but with Auntie Sarah's beautiful, dedicated first editions in pride of place. Her room. Home.

Alice swayed forward. The crystal was so close it felt as though she could step into the room inside. _Home_. No more sore feet. No more stupid worms or deep, dark pits in the floor. Mommy would mend her torn nightshirt and kiss better every bruise. Daddy Toby would do the toy parade, giving each stuffed character its own silly voice. Auntie Sarah would come in 'just to kiss you good night, darling' and end up telling her a fantastic story not in any book, something about knights and witches and dragons. But not goblins. Alice didn't think she'd want to hear about goblins again for a very long time.

Without ever seeming to move, the Goblin King was now kneeling opposite her, uncaring of the rough ground sullying his smart clothes. Their faces were only separated by the crystal, held rock-steady by elegant fingers. Alice was too absorbed by the image in the crystal to look through it and, had she done so, she could never have read the expression in the King's eyes. A tiny gasp escaped her. She had never wanted anything this much. One tiny step and she knew, she knew , that she could be back there. As the image grew more real, Alice could make out smaller and smaller details. She could see the row of stitches where Mommy had mended an old, well-loved toy. The gold-embossed titles gleamed against the jewel colours of the book spines. If she leaned just the tiniest bit closer, she might be able to pick out which one she wanted as her next bedtime story. The bedspread had been turned back, enticing her into the safety of the canopy, its gauzy drapes touched by a sliver of moonlight which crept through a gap in the curtains. Strange how it was night-time - still night-time - there while it was bright day in the Labyrinth. The thought came and went too fast to be a warning, yet something in Alice's mind warned her anyway. In that tiny chink between the curtains, the blackness of the sky and the light in the room made a mirror of the window-pane. Reflected in that mirror was the miniscule image of the hallway and, beyond, the master bedroom. The room where Mommy and Daddy Toby slept. The room which held Michael's crib. There was no way that Alice should have seen it in so small an image, but she saw it nonetheless. The crib was empty.

Empty. Because Michael was not there. He was here, in the Labyrinth, and it was up to Alice to save him. With a great gulp of air, like someone surfacing from drowning, Alice wrenched herself back from the crystal.

"NO!"

The Goblin King drew back. "No?" His voice was utterly steady, the same faintly amused drawl, but there was the smallest of flickers in his icy calm.

"No!" Alice shrieked again. She lunged forward, trying to swat the crystal from his hands, shatter its empty promises, dash the sugar-sweet temptation into fragments on the dusty ground. The King flipped this crystal neatly from her reach, rolling it over his hands as he stood to tower over the little girl once again. "I hate you!" the child spat. "You're nasty and mean and I'm going to save Michael whether you like it or not!" Alice stopped just short of kicking him in the shins. Even in her fury, she realised that it would be a bad idea, not least because she was barefoot against his long leather boots.

"Ah well, if you're so sure," the Goblin King said. He cocked his head, as though he was listening to something far away, something Alice couldn't hear. "A pity," he mused softly, then flung the crystal over Alice's head.

She watched it go. He hadn't thrown it that hard but it soared, scattering a rainbow of fractured sunlight at the apex of its flight, then dropped out of sight beyond the hedges. When Alice turned back, the Goblin King had vanished.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

She was destined to walk the same path, that much was clear. This time, granted, Sarah was not precisely travelling on her own two feet, but it appeared the Goblin King had deemed it fitting - or amusing - that she should re-trace her original steps with the incentive that there was now an additional life at stake. Sarah wondered idly where her own feet were at that moment. Was her body lying inert on the floor in Toby's bedroom? Maybe it was in some sort of waiting area in the Castle. Or maybe, she thought with a shudder, it was gone altogether and she was destined to spend the rest of her existence riding piggy-back in the mind of Kip or some other poor goblin.

"Stop that!"

(What?)

"Stop thinking like that. You are not going to spend the rest of your life as we are now."

(You don't know that.)

"I know that His Majesty chose me for this task because of my loyalty. I know that he values that loyalty and I know that he would not reward it by hurting me this way. Now please, Sarah, stop!"

(I'm sorry. I didn't realise... either thing actually. That I was hurting you or that you could hear me.) How much could Kip sense of her thoughts now? Every little dark secret? How deep did it go?

"I don't hear - feel? - everything about you, nor do I wish to. But it's getting worse and I can't concentrate on anything with someone else in my head. It's like... I don't know, like trying to do archery practise when the drill sergeant is yelling marching steps across the parade. It's annoying and distracting and tiring."

(Well I didn't ask to be stuck in here,) Sarah said, stung. (You've got your precious king to thank for that.)

"But you _are _here, Sarah, and neither of us can do anything about it. No doubt His Majesty will separate us once the Clock has run out."

Sarah wished that she had Kip's confidence, but the guardswoman's faith was entirely rooted in her trust of the Goblin King and that was something Sarah would never share. She had told Kip the truth when she had said that the Labyrinth had taught her a valuable lesson. She _had_ been spoiled and selfish, but what teenager wasn't? Sarah doubted that she had acted any worse than most fifteen-year-old girls would in a similar situation. Eventually, she would have gotten over the upheaval that Karen and Toby had wrought in her life, just as any normal young woman would have done. So yes, she had learned something, but it was something that would have come in time regardless, and she could never forgive or forget the way that the lesson had been given. While she had been a mere inconvenience to the Goblin King, he had turned - _I have turned my life upside down and I have done it all for you - _her whole world inside out. It was something that she couldn't begin to explain to anyone, let alone a goblin guardswoman.

(Fine, whatever you say,) Sarah said sullenly.

"You don't have much choice but to trust me," Kip muttered.

"Talking to yerself, Sergeant?" came a voice behind her. The doorway guards always made sure to appear when you were looking the other way.

"First sign of madness, you know."

"Aye, an' what's the second sign?"

"It's when you expect an answer!"

(Jeez, I'd forgotten what a hoot these guys were.)

Kip bowed to the guards. "Sirs, have you seen a young human child pass this way?"

"Ah, c'mon Sergeant, truth and lies, ye ken the rules."

"Sir Percival, I know which door it is. I have lived here all my life."

(He's called Percival? What are the other ones? Gawain and Lancelot?")

_Close. Now hush_. "I know that the Oubliette has opened but that it is empty. You must have helped her."

"She beat us fair an' square. Lovely lassie, very polite."

"No she didn't. She fell down the hole," the left upper character insisted.

"Ah, so she has been through. Sir Bors, if you please..."

"Well, seeing as it's you, Sergeant."

"No it isn't!"

"For the sake of all that's holy, Bed, will you put a sock in it for just a second?" Bors grumbled as his - or possibly his counterpart's - feet shuffled the heavy stone shield aside.

(The hedge maze! That's where she is! Oh, Alice, we'll be there soon.)

Kip moved cautiously through the door. As the floor opened up, she snapped, "King's Guard. No messing around, thank you." A forest of hands sprung up to provide a rickety bridge.

"You know, this is playing hell with my manicure," grumbled a subterranean voice.

As Kip neared the edge of the gap, there was a faint tinny sound and a flash of light from the passage ahead of her. For a second, Sarah could have sworn that she saw one of the Goblin King's pretty glass globes hit the ground. But then there was something far more welcome - a flicker of pink nightshirt and dirty bare heel rounding a corner in the distance.

(Alice!)

It was done so quickly that Kip didn't have time to resist. Sarah wrenched away control of the goblin body and flung it the remaining few steps across the Helping Hands.

(Alice! Wait!)

"Sarah, no!"

A single step onto solid ground. Another hole opened. Sarah and Kip fell into the Oubliette.

* * *

_Author's Note: A little more of the Goblin King's trickery to satisfy you Jareth fans. Thank you to those who are reviewing, especially if you review regularly. And I'd like everyone to start thinking... do you think that Sarah should be Changed if she and Kip are separated? Of course, they have to make it out of the Oubliette first, mwahahaaa!_


	6. Five: To Forget About

_Disclaimer:_ - I do not own the Labyrinth, Jareth, Sarah, Toby or the goblins. Alice and Kip are mine, although trying to take stuff from the Goblin King is probably a really bad idea.

_Warning:- _This chapter contains non-graphic references to child abuse which some readers may find upsetting.

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* * *

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Five – To Forget About

"_Free me before I slip away / Heal me, save me from this day"  
_– _Somebody Help Me / Theme from_ Tru Calling_ (Full Blown Rose)_

_-X-_

The little girl was crying into the darkness; a thready, terrified sound which seemed to spin each minute into hours. Nobody came. The darkness was where they put you when you were bad, when you took the wrong path. The darkness was for punishing, for teaching a lesson. The darkness was a place for lonely, wicked souls. It was where you put people when you wanted to forget about them.

She didn't know how long she'd been crying. Maybe it was only a few minutes. Maybe it was a thousand years. There wasn't any time in the dark, just as there wasn't any direction. Or any_body_. Only the memories, which you had to hold onto so very tightly. If everyone else had forgotten, it was a matter of survival that you keep on remembering. The problem was that the details were so hazy, little more than blurred shapes in fog, muffled sounds, a lingering strain of music and a faint taste of peaches. Sometimes if the little girl concentrated really hard, she could make out a face, very occasionally she could even feel a name start to surface. But she didn't like to concentrate that hard. It made her head hurt. And her heart, for some reason. Lately, she didn't know whether she was crying because she had almost forgotten those things, or because she was so close to remembering them.

The girl hated the darkness even though all of the memories were clearer then. The good memories hid away from the light, but so did the bad ones. At night, when she was plunged into nothing, the worst memories came creeping back, taunting, teasing. Memories not just of people, places, friends and adversaries, but also of herself, what she truly was, and the terrible things that she had done. It was then that the crying reached frantic fever pitch a fraction away from screams and, after an endless few minutes, someone came.

"We're going to have to move her to another room."

"I'll talk to the father in the morning. I think we should see about getting her medication changed as well. She should be getting calmer by now."

"She's fine in the daytime. Hardly mentions the fantasy world at all. It just gets worse at night."

"Maybe we should just buy her a night-light."

"Cheaper than therapy!"

"Careful, you'll talk yourself out of a job! Now, come on, Sarah. You're disturbing the other patients. Stop being silly, sweetie."

"Is Hoggle coming to rescue me? I'm not leaving without Toby, you know."

"Okay, honey. Whatever you say. Are you going to be good now?"

"Tell him that he's not going to trick me again. Hoggle's my friend, he won't betray me. Where's Toby? Where did he take Toby?"

"Toby?"

"The little brother."

"Oh, Toby. He's fine, Sarah. He's safe at home."

"No! You don't understand! You have to let me save Toby! There's only four hours left!"

"Here, give her this."

"Sarah, I want you to drink this for me. Be a good girl, now."

"I won't touch the peach! It's a trick!"

"No peaches, honey. Just some nice juice. How's that?"

"No peaches? And you'll help me to the centre?"

"That's right. Just drink your juice and I'll help you."

"Don't put me back. Don't put me back there."

"You don't have to go anywhere. Don't worry."

They didn't understand. They never understood. They put the girl in the dark again, and it came back. It all came back.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

She didn't want to go back. She wasn't even sure that she could find the way. The hedge maze had made so many twists and turns, and its walls were so high, that Alice no longer had the slightest idea which way the Castle lay. All she knew was that she was lost. The Goblin King had led her to this place, far away from her original path, and then he had abandoned her here. Knowing how tricky he was, Alice was sure that he hadn't done her a favour by bringing her here, so she really should try to find her way back. But she couldn't face heading back into the endless green. Maybe if she could see something, give herself a direction, it would help. The stone urn against which the 

Goblin King had propped himself to taunt her seemed to have vanished with him – _I hope it landed on his foot when it un-vanished_, Alice thought – and there was no other vantage point in the clearing for her to get a view over the hedges.

Part of Alice really regretted that she had not taken up the King's offer to send her home. She was so tired, so hungry, so sore. She wished with all her heart that she could be brave like the lady Alexa in the tale, but right now all she wanted was for someone else to take up the burden of looking for Michael. In Auntie Sarah's stories, the lost girl always found friends to help her. _Sarah_ had found friends, she had found them here, in the Labyrinth. So why was Alice all alone? People had helped her, like Hoggle and the guards at the door, but they hadn't come with her afterwards. Everyone needed a companion on a quest.

Well, there was certainly nobody here. Alice couldn't even hear birds singing, even though she could see the branches of a tree peeking over the hedges just around the next corner… A tree. She could climb the tree to see over the hedges! Granny Meg didn't like Alice to climb trees, she always said how Mommy had broken her arm falling out of a tree which was silly because Mommy had two arms just fine. But Mommy let Alice climb on the big tree in the park, and Alice was sure that Mommy would let her climb this tree now. Feeling the first surge of hope since she had seen that horrible crystal ball, Alice ran round the corner toward the branches.

There was no tree. Confused, Alice glanced around wildly. Maybe she had to go round another bend in the maze. But she couldn't see the tree anywhere any more. It was just another trick. With a sigh, Alice turned and walked back into the clearing.

The tree was there. But it was just behind a wall, a real wall made out of stone. And, because the Labyrinth always offered choices, there were two doors in the wall.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

_Kip? Are you... Are we okay? Kip?_

Silence. Blackness. Closing in like smothering velvet, a dark cloud trailing a stream of memory, fear and the horrific realisation that, while Kip was unconscious, Sarah was not. And then a thought far more chilling - what if Kip was badly injured? What if she died?

What if she was dead already?

_No! Come on, don't think like that. You are not stuck in someone's body in a dark pit. Kip is fine. Goblins are indestructible, remember?_

Not completely. Sarah remembered the long scar on Kip's face. Despite goblins getting thrown every which way, seemingly none the worse for wear, during her battle for the city, they evidently could be hurt. She wondered what could have caused the guardswoman such injury. Sarah had never thought about the Guard much. When she had encountered them in the Labyrinth and within the Goblin City, they had seemed slow and stupid. The biggest problem posed to Sarah and her friends was the sheer number of them. But Kip was neither slow nor stupid, and Sarah had to 

assume that Kip was not the only intelligent member of the Guard. Maybe a lot of them were Born goblins, but many of them would also be Changed, as Kip was. Why did the Goblin King need an army? Surely they weren't just for decoration, and for hindering the occasional challenger in the Labyrinth. What was going on?

_Kip? Come on, Kip._

Sarah could feel an edge of hysteria in her un-voiced thought. What was she going to do? She tried to move Kip's inert form but couldn't shift a finger.

_Please, Kip. Please wake up. Please be okay. _Then, a mere whisper of a thought, _Don't leave me alone in the dark._

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

The little girl was crying into the darkness; silent sobs which racked her body but didn't dare manifest themselves as noise. The front of her dress was soaked with tears, the back soaked with worse. They would be angry at that. Angrier. They had put her in the dark because she was dirty and disgusting, and now she had proved it beyond denial. She hadn't meant to do it, but she had been alone in the dark for so long she just couldn't hold it any more. It hadn't occurred to the girl to cry out. She used to cry out, a long time ago, but it only led to worse things than the dark. No, scary and uncomfortable as it was, the dark was her friend. For a little while, when she was in the dark, they would forget about her and she could pretend that she forgot about them.

Sometimes, in the dark, she had dreams. They weren't the usual dreams which she had in the proper night-time where she was running away all the time. These dreams picked her up, cleaned her filthy clothes and washed her stringy hair. They gave her food to eat from a real plate on a real table. Sometimes, if she was lucky and the dream went on for a long time, it would rock her to sleep, singing gently. She didn't know how she could fall asleep in a dream but it was magical. When she was back in the real world, the little girl would clutch the dream memory to herself as though the cradling arms could be summoned back. This time, though, she was too wet and cold to dream. And now she could hear voices and, even though she was wet and cold, she wished with all her heart that she could stay in the dark forever.

"Do you have to let it out?"

"Kids need to eat, goddammit! You may not give a damn about going to jail, but I'm not going in for some little bawling shit. It'll just take a minute."

"Jesus. This is what I get for hooking up with you."

"Quit your fucking complaining. You don't moan when it brings in the welfare checks, do you? An' if you wanna go begging with it again, it'll be better with a kid that ain't half dead, right?"

"All fucking right. Just feed the damn thing and get it over with."

_No. No, I'm not hungry. Leave me…_ Despite the grimy windows and dull day, the light was still, thankfully, enough of an explosion that the little girl couldn't see their faces. Their hateful, hating faces.

"Oh Christ! What is that smell?"

"You ungrateful little piece of shit! I worked my tail off for that dress and look what you did! You're repulsive!"

"What, I'm supposed to eat with that thing dripping piss onto the goddamn carpet? Shit, woman, can't you control it at all?"

The vicious shake snapped the girl's head back so hard that she almost fell. "Take it off. Take it all off. If you can't treat your clothes nice, you don't deserve 'em."

Naked and shivering, she was allowed to crouch in the corner with her meal. She remembered the plate. She remembered the table. She remembered the gentle hands washing her and dressing her in warm, soft clothing. Quietly, she began to cry again. It wasn't quiet enough.

"For fuck's sake, stop whining! If you don't shut up, you're going back in the cellar."

They didn't understand. They never understood. She _wanted_ to go back in the dark. She wanted to go back where the dreams were.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Like everything else in the Labyrinth, the doors weren't what they seemed. At first glance, they had looked just like old wooden doors with elaborate knockers, but this illusion was dispelled the moment Alice reached up a cautious hand to touch one ugly sculpted face.

"It's very rude just to poke a person like that, you know!"

Alice screamed, stumbling backward and barely keeping to her feet. The left-hand knocker, which looked rather more like a pig than a person, was scowling at her, its face further screwed-up in displeasure.

"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were…"

"Speak up young lady. That's the problem with the young these days, they always _mumble_!"

"I'm sorry!" Alice said again, then she noticed that the ring which formed the actual knocker was attached through both of the character's ears. No wonder it couldn't hear her. She glanced at the other knocker. This one was somewhat more human-looking, with its ring clasped in its mouth.

"Mmmmpf. Mmmhmm?" the mouth-knocker said hopefully as it caught the direction of the little girl's gaze.

Now it was Alice's turn not to understand, but the ears-knocker helped her out. "Wants you to take the ring out. Makes his jaw ache. Go on then, I might actually get a decent conversation out of him for a change."

The metal ring in the knocker's mouth was huge. Alice could barely get her hands around it, and the circle would probably fit over her whole head. Still, she should try to help these two. Maybe they could help her in return even if, obviously, they could accompany her no further than their own doors. Standing on tip-toe, she grasped the ring as tight as she could and tried to pull it out of the knocker's mouth. It only managed to shift a tiny bit before Alice lost both her grip and her balance. As she hit the floor, creating yet another bruise, she saw the knocker fall back into place.

It made only the smallest noise, less sound than Alice had made with her fall, but it was enough. The door swung open. Despite wanting to ask the knockers for advice, Alice knew that she should take this new path. It was different from the hedge maze, and that couldn't be a bad thing.

"I'm really sorry," she said, realising that she had spent more time apologising to this pair than doing anything else. "I'm too little to help you. I hope someone bigger comes along soon."

The door slammed behind her as soon as she had passed through it, but she didn't mind. This was nothing like the hedge maze at all. The path meandered gently through trees and sprawling undergrowth. Instead of being harsh, the light was soft. It was just like being in a park, or a garden and Alice loved gardens.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Some things were meant to be forgotten, Sarah decided. The doctors kept telling her that she wouldn't be better until she remembered what had happened to her, but they didn't – _couldn't_ – know everything. When things had been bad, when she wasn't sure who she was, she had tried to tell them all of the dreams that seemed so real. They were dreams, that was the important thing to remember now. Whatever she had thought at the time, they were not memories. How could anyone have thought that anything so ridiculous could be real? Now that she was better, she could see that. Clear as crystal… no, clear as _day_. There were still some things, some dreams-which-seemed-like-memories, which made her uncomfortable. Some of the doctors were still convinced that Sarah wasn't better at all, that she had suffered some trauma which had brought on her illness, and that the trauma must be uncovered before Sarah could be well again. Others, thankfully, had decided that Sarah's descent into a fantasy world had been purely as a result of her illness. In their opinion, the illness itself was the root of all the trouble.

It was definitely easier to think that way. The trauma theory was nonsense, Sarah told herself proudly. Knowing that she could view it that way was reassuring. She had obviously wanted to blame someone else for everything that had happened, it was understandable. But now she knew that no one was to blame. She had been ill, a condition that affected a surprising number of people. Once she started to get better, she had been allowed to read about her illness. At first, the statistics horrified her but, later, she found them comforting. This happened to a lot of people. It even happened to a lot of people around her age. It didn't mean that she was lost forever. It didn't even 

mean that she would be ill like that again. Some people only ever had a single episode. A lot of people.

_I was ill, just like a lot of people. I got better, just like a lot of people. I'm just like other people_. It became a mantra.

Having been ill was a good reason. When Sarah remembered what she had done – and those were memories that she wished she could lose in the darkness – it still hurt but it was easier now that she could blame the illness. She hadn't been herself. It hadn't been her doing those things, it had been a sick girl living in a fantasy world.

It was a fairly short and easy step from blaming the illness to blaming its symptom – the fantasy world itself. Obviously, the world and those people in it had been responsible for all of the bad things. Most especially, the central figure in the fantasy world must be the most culpable. Sarah wasn't aware of the tiniest sliver of that world which insinuated itself carefully back into her shell. A sly trap-door in her brain allowed the illogic of a flight of fancy having actual responsibility. Once she stopped trying not to think of… _certain things_… and actually managed to stop thinking about them, it was simple.

By the time years had passed and Sarah allowed herself limited, guarded access to the memories of her delusions, the sliver had made itself so much at home that it went un-noticed. Besides, every good tale needed a villain and it made perfect sense, especially to children, if that villain was over-the-top evil. The very young were bored by shades of grey, they wanted a world in brilliant technicolour. Shades of grey belonged in shadows, and shadows were never allowed out to play.

So she was claustrophobic, disliked peaches, thought crystal ornaments were tacky and wasn't hugely keen on blonde men? Didn't that apply to a lot of women? A lot of _normal_ women? She was just like everyone else.

She just happened to be scared of the dark.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Kip wasn't sure if she was asleep or awake. For one horrible disoriented moment, she had been in a place of absolute nightmare, a place that didn't belong to Kip at all. It was almost as if her whole life as a Guardswoman had turned insubstantial as the mist that surrounded the Forest. She had fought with all her being to bring herself back but now she was just as confused. If she was awake, why was it so dark? She remembered waking that morning, didn't she? And, if that had been illusion and it was still too early to be light, where were the snuffles and snores from the other beds in the barracks? Here, there was nothing. It was almost as if she…

…had fallen into the Oubliette. The whole bizarre day hit Kip like a blow. And, at that moment, she realised the thing that was the most wrong with the situation right now. She couldn't sense Sarah at all. Even though it had only been a few hours, Kip had grown used to the presence of the human woman. Where was she? Surely Kip had not lain insensible in the Oubliette for the entire thirteen hours. She was notoriously hard-headed, even for a goblin. And Sarah could not be 

unconscious or dead, could she? _How _could she? Kip shifted uneasily in the dark but it was like moving in a void. She wasn't aware of making any progress across the floor. _Curse it!_ Most facets of the Labyrinth knew better than to mess around with the Guard, although new recruits were fair game, but the Oubliette was different. Although it was always referred to as a single entity, there seemed to be many points of entry and, this was the strangest thing, no matter how many people fell into the Oubliette, each one was always alone.

Always alone. Even as entwined as Sarah and Kip had been, each was on her own now. While there was no definition to the darkness, no hint of walls or any other feature, the darkness seemed to close in on Kip. The nightmare world was only a paper-thin wall away.

"Sarah?" Kip whispered. "Can you hear me? Where are you? Speak to me. _Please._" Not knowing if the words were real or just in her head.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Once upon a time, Alice had loved gardens. When Mommy and Daddy stopped living in the same house, one of the things that made sad things better was the lovely garden in the new house that Mommy shared with Daddy Toby. There was a big enough square of grass for Alice to play horse-jumping without running into the swing, and lots of pretty flowers. She had wanted Daddy Toby to make her a tree-house just like her friend Melanie had, but the trees were too little. Instead, he made a little wooden house just for her and Mommy painted trees on the outside. It was perfect. Even when Michael was born, and Alice felt cross all the time, the garden still made her happy. She had thought then that she would like to live in her little house forever.

Now she never wanted to see another bush or tree or hedge ever _ever_ again. This place wasn't like the park or a proper garden at all, it was dark and scary and went on forever in all directions. Not long after she had begun to follow the path, the light had grown dimmer, as though evening was approaching. Alice was terribly bewildered. It had been night-time at home. There had been a big storm. But then the Goblin King had taken her into a place where it was dry and somehow it was daytime. Now it looked like it was nearly night-time again even though Alice hadn't been to sleep properly, or had breakfast or lunch or anything. Surely if she'd had to go all day without eating anything, she'd be even more hungry than she was right now. People couldn't have a whole day with no food, surely. They'd fall down dead. The time here just wasn't right. Maybe this wasn't night-time at all. Maybe this was just a place that liked the dark.

Alice wasn't normally afraid of the dark. She didn't want a night-light in her bedroom. But this dark was different. It was dark like in a cave where the nasty trolls lived. It was dark like the cellar in a witch's cottage. There were sounds, but they weren't reassuring sounds like birds singing or other children playing. From somewhere else in the woods came something almost like music. To Alice, it sounded like a party where ogres were getting ready to eat little girls.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

There had been a bargain, of sorts. It wasn't ever written down, never spoken, never even put into words in the secrecy of her own head, but there was a bargain nevertheless. It covered the nature of dreams, and allowed the bending of reality. If a person chooses – or is chosen – to live the rest of her life in a dream, then surely the dream becomes reality. In accepting that, can it not then be accepted that the reality which came before was nothing but a dream? That a person can change her own fate if she has enough force of will? Some things are meant to be forgotten, after all. Certainly they are best forgotten. So if you throw yourself whole-hearted into a different existence, eventually what came before becomes as insubstantial as the oldest dream. What might have been considered memories become tattered fragments which dissolve eventually in the wind. How easy it is to lose parts of yourself, if you want deeply enough to lose them.

In some ways, the bargain comes down to this: "If I promise to accept this dream as my whole world, will you promise me that I never have to see the other world again? Not even in a dream."

The problem with unspoken bargains is that the terms are always subject to change, just as memory changes. Especially if the bargain itself changes the memories. To remind yourself of the terms, you have to bring back things which are far best to forget.

In the Oubliette, two people tried to reach each other across a distance which was as far the past, as impossible as the future, as close as a whisper. In the misty woods, a little girl was crying into the darkness.

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_Author's Note: Thanks as ever for the reviews - some of them are enormously flattering - and please spread the word._

_**Solea**: I get your point about people not being so keen because this isn't an out-and-out Jareth/Sarah romance. And there isn't a vast amount of interaction between the two of them just yet, you're right. Actually, there's not a vast amount in the movie either (shame). There will be more J/S scenes to come though. After all, Alice has just thirteen hours in the Labyrinth, of which she's used a considerable chunk. Sarah has just signed herself up for life._

_**Subtilior:** How did I know you were going to vote for Changing Sarah?! You have an evil sense of humour. As for "mad hot macking luv" er, (a) I'm not entirely sure what you mean because I'm British and old and (b) mwahahahaaa._


	7. Six: Companions

_Disclaimer:_ _Despite an lengthy legal battle, Jareth is still not mine. And, to add insult to injury, he's claimed custody of Alice during the school holidays. Damn those Goblin courts._

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Six – Companions

"_The woods are lovely, dark, and deep/ But I have promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep"  
- __Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening__ (Robert Frost_

_-X-_

The mist in the woods seemed to be oddly sticky, curling along the ground and clinging to the trees and bushes as though it were alive. If there were any way at all to avoid the stuff, Alice would have done so but it was impossible. The little girl wished briefly that she could fly, until she glanced up and saw the creepers criss-crossing the trees like a giant spider web. Meanwhile, the terrifying child-eating-ogre party noises went on. Alice felt as though she was running in ten different directions, even though her feet were rooted to the spot. What was she going to do? Maybe she should simply hide until the noises went away. But what if they didn't? What if the monsters carried on having their party for ages and ages until Michael got made into a goblin? Perhaps she could sneak around the party, which sounded like an obvious solution except that Alice wasn't exactly sure where the noises were coming from. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. Of course, that was impossible, or it would be anywhere else but in the Labyrinth.

Alice took a tentative step forward and there was a sudden whoop of laughter. She froze again, heart thudding. Hiding, that was the way. No, she couldn't hide, what about Michael? Well, maybe she should go back. No, she didn't know the way and what if the monsters were between her and the door? Well maybe she should climb a tree. No, what if they weren't creepers at all but snakes or something even more horrible? Maybe, maybe, maybe. What if, what if, what if. Alice was beyond tears now, paralysed by the frantic feeling coiling tighter and tighter in her chest. She wanted to get out. She wanted to go home. If the Goblin King appeared this minute and offered her that crystal ball with her room in it again, she would step into it right away. How had she thought that she could rescue Michael? She was only six, not even six-and-a-half yet. So maybe if she called out to the Goblin King, he would appear, just like he had at the start of this terrible adventure.

"I wish…" Alice whispered, so softly that the words were inaudible even to her. Her throat felt dry. "I wish the g…" She stopped again and swallowed. Why couldn't she do it? Maybe if she just _thought_ the words really hard, that would work. But now she couldn't even do that. What was wrong with her?

Deep down, she knew. It wasn't the Goblin King keeping her in the Labyrinth, it was Alice herself. She could never leave Michael. But Alice wished with all her heart that, if she was brave enough to go into the Labyrinth and search for her brother, she could be brave enough to do what was needed now that she was here. _I have to be brave, _Alice told herself.

"Hello," came a voice just behind her.

Alice screamed.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Sarah tried to push away the insistent, muddled memories of the dark time. _Okay, so you're in the Oubliette. It could be worse. I mean, you've been in here before, right?_ Right. Except that last time, she'd had a body to call her own. She'd been able to fumble about in the darkness. Not that it got her anyway until Hoggle arrived but if she'd known back then where the door was, she could have opened it. Now the door could have been standing right in front of her, complete with jaunty paint, a welcome mat and a humorous doorbell, and she still wouldn't be able to do a damn thing. _I swear I'm never again going to laugh at one of those movies where a ghost tries to do normal stuff_. Although, if she was a ghost, she would be able to walk through the wall and escape. _I'm not even a ghost. I'm like… a ghost of a ghost._

It had been like that back in the hospital sometimes. Some nights, the dreams had been so vivid that the doctors had given Sarah medication to make them go away. The drugs made her feel as though she wasn't properly in her body, a bit like the way she felt when she was a mere passenger in Kip. There had been times when Sarah had suddenly woken from something that wasn't really sleep, to find that she was staring out of a window, or sitting in front of the TV, with no recollection of getting there. And then she would realise that she had been there for hours, that her body had been acting almost of its own accord while her mind drifted, attached with a gossamer tether that might snap at any moment. She hadn't really minded the drifting part. It was comfortable, peaceful, free. No, it was the part where her body and mind were reunited with a sort of jolt, back into the reality of the hospital. That was the unpleasant part. Back then, she had understood why people got addicted. It would have been so easy to live in that dissociated state forever. Just to drift.

Drifting wasn't a part of getting better though. She had needed to focus on the real world, face her demons and recognise them for what they were, facets of her illness. Once that was achieved, she was on the road to getting better and she could go home. Look, everyone, here is Sarah. She's better now, she realises that there's no such thing as goblins, that Toby isn't in danger, and that she didn't almost lose her little brother for the sake of dreams offered in a glittering bauble. And if there are little setbacks, small slips, that's to be expected. But Sarah understands now what is real.

_What the hell is real any more?_ Sarah could try and try to convince herself that this was a relapse or just a terrible dream, but deep in her heart she knew otherwise. For twenty years, she had clung to the belief that the Labyrinth was a creation of a delusional mind. But now what? The time in the hospital, the medication, the endless sessions of therapy, days, months, _years_ of guilt, sorrow, anger, denial, acceptance. All for what? For her life to be ripped away, for her to be dropped back into the place that had left its harsh mark on her soul. All this time, she had been telling herself that certain actions were purely the result of her illness, that she would never have done such things in her right mind. _And all this time, I was never really ill at all_. Disembodied as she was, Sarah still felt cold to the bottom of her nonexistent heart.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Kip couldn't even find the energy to curse. When she was a young goblin, her attempts at profanity had regularly had the others in hysterics. When she entered the Guard, her fellow recruits had been in awe of her colourful descriptions of their superiors. As a Sergeant, she could make recruits twice her size and four times her weight cower without lifting a finger, never mind a sword. But now, stuck in the Oubliette, she felt like nothing more than a

frightened child. Worse, a frightened _human_ child. Kip shivered. She didn't regard human children with fear or suspicion as some of her kind were prone to do, nor did she fawn over then as the Born nursemaids did, but she had cut off her human self absolutely and had no desire to connect with it again. Her strength came after she was Changed. The honourable, courageous, acerbic Guardswoman was a goblin, not a human. If offered the choice a thousand more times, Kip would always be Changed. The goblin had control, as the human had not.

Maybe she had to connect with her human side, though. Maybe it was the only way to get to Sarah again. Kip was reasonably sure that the moment that she made contact with Sarah, the Oubliette would reject them. It didn't like cooperation. When people started thinking clearly and helping each other, they let go of the memories that anchored them here. So maybe to reach a human, Kip had to uncover her human past. One of the many paradoxes of the Labyrinth. To get out of this place of fractured, painful memories, she would have to go far deeper into her childhood than she would ever have desired. Every part of her shrank from it. Sergeant-at-Arms Kip, who was never afraid.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Alice managed to run about four steps before she stumbled. She hadn't even looked behind her, just run blindly away from the voice. Now, she refused to look. Crouched on the ground, she closed her eyes tight and put her hands over them for good measure. If she was about to be eaten, she didn't want to see who was going to do it. Instead of big giant hands grabbing her and shoving her into a cooking pot, a small, tentative finger brushed against her arm.

"You scared? No no, no scared. Chill out now," said the mystery voice.

It didn't sound like a giant. It sounded like a normal-sized child. Very slowly, Alice lowered her hands and opened her eyes. In front of her was blur of brightly-coloured fur. She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes, but the fur remained stubbornly bright against the dull misty background of the forest. Then, slowly, a face came into view as the creature bent down.

Alice didn't know what to make of the face. It wasn't a fox, or a bird, or a dragon, or a monkey, but it might have been made up of parts of all of those. There was very nearly an eagle beak, and very nearly floppy dog ears. The bright eyes were surrounded by a mass of long red-orange-purple-pink-yellow fur. As Alice got to her feet, she realised that the creature was about the same height as her but thinner and furry all over. It was grinning a grin full of sharp-looking teeth but, strangely, Alice wasn't afraid any more.

"See, not scary at all," said the creature. "You and me the only not-scary things in big scary Forest."

Alice managed a shaky smile. The creature's grin widened.

"Good, you chilled out now, yes?" it said. "What are you? Not goblin, no? Funny looking for a goblin."

"No!" Alice said, and very nearly laughed in spite of her fear. "I'm a person. A girl."

"Aaaah, human child, oh yes. The clock ticking, everyone knows." The creature looked up as though it could see a clock suspended in the branches above them. "But you so little, so scared."

"Yes," said Alice. "I'm scared. But I'm not little. I'm nearly six and a half." Michael was little. He couldn't even walk or talk properly. Alice could run and climb trees and everything. Still, tree-climbing skills apart, right now she needed some help. "I need to get into the centre of the Lab'rinth," she said. "Do you know the way, please?"

"Oh, yes. Fidget knows everything in the Labyrinth. Well, not the door riddle and not the safe stones in the Bog and not the words for the quick passages and not all the Eat Me Drink Me rules and… Fidget knows _not_ everything about the Labyrinth, but lots anyway. Fidget, that's me!" The creature pointed to itself with a long finger.

"I'm Alice," said Alice. "Will you help me?"

"Should stop you," said Fidget. Alice's heart sank. "All goblins, it's a rule. Clock ticking, stop the human, drop in the Bog, you know?"

"That's a stupid rule!" Alice said. "My Auntie Sarah, she had people – goblins people, I mean – who helped her. They went right to the middle with her and saved Daddy Toby from the nasty G…"

Fidget clapped a hand over Alice's mouth. "Shhhh. You say, he hears you. He watches lots. You be careful."

Alice nodded, and the hand was removed. "But what if…" she began, then broke off in dismay as she heard the sound of someone crashing through the Forest just a little distance from them. He was here already! It was so not fair. Stupid Goblin King, listening to her and trying to stop anyone from helping her. If she ever got a wish again, she'd wish that he knew what it felt like for Alice right now, to be scared and alone and wanting with all your heart to be safe at home.

"Come _now_!" hissed Fidget, grabbing Alice's hand.

The two of them pushed into the undergrowth and peered around a tree stump. Alice didn't see the point of hiding. The Goblin King had known where to find her under the bed, and he made her come out even though she didn't really want to. Still, she crouched low and kept hold of Fidget's hand. The contact made her feel better; a tiny bit less scared. If she tried, she could almost pretend that Fidget was her friend Melanie from school and they were playing a game. Almost.

The crashing noise got louder, accompanied by a sing-song voice. "Come out, come out wherever you are!" Alice realised that, whoever this was, it wasn't the Goblin King. Then, as she felt the long fingers grip her hand tighter and felt Fidget shaking, she began to think that this whoever wasn't looking for her at all. They were looking for Fidget.

A figure burst through the bushes close to their hiding place. It looked like Fidget only bigger and fatter. "Come on, Fidget, only playing now!" it called.

"Find her yet?" came a second voice, and another creature appeared.

"No no, chill out, she hiding, yes?"

"Come on, Fidget, you be fun now, yes? We give your head back this time, promise!"

"We promise, we do, no more throwing heads. No no no."

The two creatures jumped up and down, chanting. "Throwing heads, throwing heads, no more throwing heads!" Their jumps grew more crazed until, to Alice's astonishment, their heads started to bounce right off their shoulders. She turned to Fidget who had her spare hand wrapped around her own head as though she was trying to hold it on.

"Okay okay, chill out now, no Fidget here," said the fatter creature, grabbing its head and pulling it firmly down.

"Let's try… _more Forest_!" cried its friend, and the two set off again.

Once the noise of their progress had faded, Alice and Fidget crept out of the bushes.

"You can take your _head _off?" said Alice, astounded.

"Yes but…" Fidget scuffed a foot in the dirt. "All the others, they like dancing heads off and everything. They take Fidget's head and not give back for lots of time. Fidget wants to keep head on now forever. They say it a game and we friends but…"

"They're not friends!" Alice said hotly. "My friends would _never_ take my head off and not give it back!"

"No?" said Fidget. "You not want my head?"

"No. I promise I won't take your head, Fidget. Not ever."

"Okay, we chill now. Fidget never take Alice head off, not ever, either." Fidget grinned again and took Alice's hand. "And we go Castle now, yes?"

"Yes!" said Alice happily.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Maybe she would have to let Kip see everything, Sarah thought. Perhaps that was the way out of here. When she was here before, she had got out when she made a sacrifice. Looking back, it had been a tiny, trivial thing – just a token piece of junk jewellery – but, at the time, she had really not wanted to give away anything. Sarah wondered where she had got that bracelet, that it had seemed so precious. Maybe it was something her mother had brought her, to go with a dressing-up outfit. Linda had always encouraged Sarah's histrionic trait. It certainly hadn't been from her father. Back then, Robert had been somewhat in denial about his daughter growing up. As an adult, Sarah realised that it was probably because he was scared that it made him feel old. Too old to be a new husband and father. Of course, fourteen-year-old Sarah had thought that it was perfectly revolting that her father would even think about _that_ sort of thing

He had thought about it, though, and Toby was the evidence. Linda was away somewhere, talked about both on-stage and off. Robert had a new wife and now a new baby. Where did that leave Sarah? The embarrassing evidence of her parents' middle age. They were _over forty_, she had told herself angrily. That was _old_. They had no business trying to act like they were young again. She felt torn between wanting to be grown-up and wanting to stay a child so that her parents would still cherish her. At school, she was neither popular nor unpopular. She had a few friends, but nobody close. Nobody understood what she was going through, she felt.

And then came the Labyrinth and the Goblin King. He had never treated her like a child. In Sarah's flights of fancy, he had been a noble, heroic figure, enough in love with her to give her that peculiar power. She, of course, was far too pure of heart ever to use it, so they could never really see each other, tempted though they were. It was a beautiful, courtly love. When she came out of hospital, Sarah had immersed herself in psychology books and decided that the Goblin King represented her fear of growing up properly. When she turned down his offer, it showed that she had learned what was really important in life. Of course, those things had only been aspects of her delirium, but that was what they meant.

_Can an aspect of delirium have a broken heart?_ Sarah said, her non-voice swallowed by the darkness. Poor Hoggle. _"..she'll jest stop callin'. She'll abandon her friends. Abandon _me._"_ When she got back from the Labyrinth, Sarah had called Hoggle and the others through the mirror and they had come. Some of the magic that she had been given remained, or perhaps it was solely hers all along. For a time, when things were hard, she could go to the mirror in the evening and everything would be better. Hoggle would grumble about the fairies and tell her that at least those bitchy girls didn't _actually_ bite her. Sir Didymus would declare that she was more fair than any lady and that the worthless boys were not fit to kiss her boots. Ludo would simply wrap his long furry arms around her until the anger and frustration with her everyday life melted away. In the minefield of maybe-friendships created by teenage girls who all have anxieties of their own, these were Sarah's true and steady friends. She always knew where she stood with them, and she never had to be anything other then herself.

And then, one day, they didn't come. Sarah fought the memory but here, in the Oubliette, time's fog was lifted, and things long-buried by grief and medication were uncovered. Sarah was seventeen and she had just had her heart not exactly broken, but badly dented. Pete Masters, eighteen, star of many school plays and leading man in Sarah's dreams for many months, had asked her to a school dance. Sarah had been over the moon. Karen, not quite a friend or confidante but now at least an ally, had taken Sarah shopping for a suitable dress. But two days before the dance, Pete changed his mind.

Now, he was almost tangible, standing in front of Sarah's invisible self, running a hand through wavy blonde hair. His head tilted in that way that made Sarah's heart lurch. "I'm sorry, Sarah," he said. "But you know how it is. Ally and me had that fight, and I thought she was going with Mike, but she's not and, hey, y'know…"

_But you asked me… _Adult Sarah's thoughts echoed the words of her teenage self. The hurt and disappointment was as real as they had been twenty years ago.

"Yeah, I know that. Look, you're a sweet girl, Sarah, but c'mon, Ally's like… well, she's amazing, y'know. You'll get another guy, no problem." And that was that.

Sarah had managed to hold back her tears until she was home but they were spilling over as soon as she shut the front door. Karen had tried to console her, but Sarah had wrenched free, pushing her stepmother away and running upstairs to the sanctity of her bedroom. Karen's tentative knock at the door was answered by a howl of "leave me alone". Karen had known Sarah's moods by then and was reasonably certain that she would calm down.

_Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, I need you all_. Sarah stroked the mirror's frame, putting her heart into the call. _Please_. Sometimes it would take a few moments but they were always there for her. Always.

This time, there weren't.

_Please_._ Please come_. In the Oubliette, Sarah ached with dread. She was there, she was seventeen again, but she was also here and she knew that they would never answer.

_Hoggle, please_. No answer.

Pete's rejection had hurt her but it was nothing to this. Sarah began to sob, frantically rubbing her hands across the mirror, pleading with her friends to help her. The mirror stayed silent, inanimate, nothing more than a sheet of glass. There was no one there.

_You have to be there. You have to!_ Barely knowing what she was doing, blinded by tears, Sarah beat her fists against the mirror.

The glass broke at the same time as her heart.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

_I'm not scared, curse it! _Kip told herself for what felt like the hundredth time. She wondered how long she would be stuck in the Oubliette. How long she had already been there. Despite her vague theory that she could reach Sarah when she touched her human past, she hadn't been able to do so. Kip remembered cleaning her first battle injury, the tentative reaching toward the wound then the abrupt withdrawal of her fingers. This was the same feeling. She needed to do this but she knew it would hurt. Maybe she wasn't brave enough.

She had been brave enough back then, though it had taken her a while. "Coward," Kip said aloud, taunting herself. She has done the same thing in the hospital tent, dredging up some adrenaline when all she really wanted to do was rest. "Coward," she said again, and suddenly her leg ached as badly as it had all those years ago.

The battle wound had been agonising, a long gash down her leg which was coated with mud and leaf debris. She knew that if she didn't clean it, it would get infected. She had seen other goblins with a permanent limp from injuries just like it. Hells, she had seen other goblins lose a limb. That was one of many times Kip wished she was a Born goblin. Despite being slower, both mentally and physically, the Born were tougher than the Changed. Some of Kip's fellow recruits had taken similar blows but were now sitting in the mess tent, drinking tea as though they had received nothing more than a tap. Kip gritted her teeth, gripped the cloth firmly and applied it to the torn skin. She winced as the warm water flared the dull pain into a sharp sting, and a string of half-formed curses forced their way through her teeth.

"You need to improve those if you're going to be a proper member of the Guard, you know."

Merkle. Fellow recruit. Another Changed goblin. So much more than that. In the Oubliette, Kip shook her head. This was a memory she didn't want.

"Well, if foul language is all you need, you'll be Captain in no time," Kip replied, but she hadn't been able to keep the smile from her face.

"And you'll follow my orders, will you?" Merkle grinned back, taking the cloth from Kip's hand and rinsing it out. He gave her an elaborate salute with his free hand.

"Not even if I have to get Bogged for it," Kip said. She yelped as Merkle reapplied the cloth with considerably less reticence than she had done.

"Don't be such a baby," he teased her. She swore at him and didn't make another sound as he cleaned out the cut. He let her grip his shoulder hard enough to leave bruises, though. That was what friends were for, after all.

While Kip recovered, Merkle taught her to curse. She healed quickly and never limped at all. In the next battle, their roles were reversed. Kip couldn't feel her fingers properly for about an hour after Merkle had his wounds stitched, but it was worth it for the list of new swear words, and for the opportunity to tease him about how he almost fainted when the needle first went in. His sword arm out of action, he submitted to Kip teaching him how to read. As they finished their training, gained promotion, fought side by side, they remained closest of friends. "I owe you my life a hundred times over," Kip said to him once. "Well, I owe you mine a hundred and one," he replied. Who was keeping score anyway? They would always be there for each other.

"No," Kip said into the darkness. "No." But the darkness ignored her.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

The forest seemed to go on forever. Alice felt like her feet would never be clean again, not even if she washed them a million times. As she scrambled wearily over a trailing root, Fidget came bounding back to her.

"Come on, Alice, no slow anymore."

"Fidget, I'm tired," Alice said. She was hungry and thirsty too. But at least she wasn't frozen with fear any more.

The multi-coloured goblin slipped her hand into the little girl's. "We go Castle then you sleep, yes? But tick tock now, Clock moving fast all the time."

Alice had no idea what time it was. For all she knew, she had already been in the Labyrinth for thirteen hours and Michael was now crawling about somewhere with a tail and pointy ears. She was pretty certain, though, that the time hadn't run out. If it had, she told herself, the Goblin King would have been sure to appear out of nowhere just so he could laugh at her. He was that sort of person. Mean people never turned down a chance to laugh at someone. The Goblin King probably had a special magic mirror like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, just for watching little girls who were unhappy.

"Look!" said Fidget, jolting Alice out of her angry thoughts.

At first, Alice wasn't sure what she was meant to be looking at but then it struck her. There was a wall in front of them and, beside it, there was a tree that was designed for climbing. They had reached the edge of the forest. Alice didn't know what was on the other side of the wall and she didn't care. Anything had to be better than the clinging mist and scary noises. The two companions scrambled up the tree and onto the top of the wall.

On the other side were more trees. Alice's heart sank for a moment, then she realised that there were only a few, and that they stood in a garden. A proper garden, joined onto a real house. Next to the little house stood another. Along the side of the garden was a narrow, twisting street leading to more houses. And, across the other side of the Goblin City, still a long walk for a small girl but closer, real, really and truly there, was the Castle at the centre of the Labyrinth.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

Sarah's father hadn't been home long, just enough to hear from his wife that Sarah had presumably had a bad day at school but seemed calmer, when they heard the crash from upstairs. Robert pounded on the locked door but could only hear sobbing which slowly tailed off into nothing. While he bruised his shoulder trying to break down the door, Karen had the presence of mind to find the spare key. Luckily, Sarah had taken the key out of the lock on her side so it wasn't really long before her father and stepmother reached her. When they did, they were horrified.

_I can't imagine what it must have looked like_, Sarah said, not really knowing whether she was speaking to Kip, to the darkness or to herself.

Sarah was sitting on her bedroom floor surrounded by bloody, broken glass. Her head was down, dark hair spilling into her lap, and she was rocking gently. "They're gone, they're gone," she murmured over and over to no one. When Robert crouched in front of his daughter, he could see that she was clutching a long shard of the mirror in her hands and blood flowed steadily from her arms, soaking her jeans.

Neither Sarah nor Robert remembered the trip to the hospital. Karen had arrived later once Toby safely installed with his grandparents. She had brought clean clothing for them both, hoping that, once Sarah's injuries were dressed, everyone could come home.

_She probably blamed herself_, Sarah realised suddenly, so many years later. _Poor Karen. She probably thought that if she'd been able to help me, I wouldn't have done what I did_.

Even if Sarah had been able to tell them coherently what had happened, they would never have believed it. At first glance, Sarah's case looked like something which was sadly common. Hysterical seventeen-year-old girl, spurned by some silly adolescent boy, makes a dramatic-looking suicide attempt. _I broke the mirror by accident, cut myself by accident_. But she wasn't coherent, and the cuts were deep and incriminating. Some stitches, a couple of nights in hospital, psychiatric evaluation, everything will be fine, Mr Williams, don't worry.

Everything wasn't fine. For twenty-four hours, Sarah's only words had been "they're gone". Then she began to talk in earnest about the Labyrinth, about how her only real friends had been some goblins who she reached through a mirror, how they had rescued her brother Toby. Things got worse when a nurse tried to give her an innocent enough dessert of tinned peaches. Sarah had flung the bowl across the room, screaming that they were trying to poison her, trying to make her forget Toby. Karen reluctantly brought three-year-old Toby in to visit his sister, hoping that she would see reason, but Sarah maintained that it was a trick and that Toby was a goblin in disguise. That was when the doctors suggested that Sarah should spend a longer period in hospital. In a special hospital.

That was when they first told Sarah's father that his daughter had schizophrenia.

She shouldn't remember these things. That time was a blur of fear, misery, sedatives and other medicine. It hadn't been clear when it was happening, and it certainly shouldn't be clear now. But that was what the Oubliette did. It was a quicksand of memories. The thing about quicksand, though, was that struggling just made things worse.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

A hundred times or a hundred and one? "So it's your turn to save my sorry hide this time, is it?" Kip had reminded Merkle as they buckled on their armour.

"If you need saving during a routine patrol, I will never let you hear the end of it," he said. "This should be easy."

It had been easy. They and the other Guard had almost finished their duty and weren't even dirty. A few of the new recruits in the group had been complaining about having to wear their heavy armour when all they'd done was trudge around the Forest and the outer markers for hours.

Kip had been on the point of tearing into the younger goblins about duty and responsibility when she was interrupted. "It builds character," Merkle said. He saw his friend's glare and grinned at her. "I know what you're going to say, but they're right," he muttered to her. "It's not as though…"

"_No_!" Kip protested, in the Oubliette, but she was as powerless now to stop what was happening as she had been years ago in the Forest. With crystal clarity, she saw the look in her best friend's eyes change from affectionate mockery to tense horror before he shoved her to the ground.

Winded, Kip rolled to her feet as the rest of the patrol turned on the troll. She had been so proud of them. Even the new recruits stayed their ground. Merkle would, of course, never let her hear the end of this. And then Kip's moment of twinned pride and embarrassment crumbled. Her sword slid from nerveless fingers as she realised what Merkle had done in saving her life. The massive stone club which should have crushed her skull had caught him in the chest, throwing him clear off his feet and slamming him into a tree. His neck was broken instantly.

A hundred and one.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

With Fidget's help, Alice managed to get across from the wall to a tree in the garden, and onto solid ground once more, dropping the last few feet into parched-looking grass. Then disaster struck. As they started out from the shelter of the tree, Alice realised that there was no way out of the garden except through the house. A house which happened to be occupied.

"Maybe they'll let me through," Alice whispered.

"No! Rules, yes? Clock is ticking, all goblins stop you," Fidget said, grabbing Alice's shoulder as if she was afraid the girl would make a run for it.

"You didn't," said Alice.

"But Fidget is Alice's friend. And Fireys also not welcome in Goblin City, too much noise, big parties."

Having seen the pair who were looking for Fidget earlier, Alice wasn't really surprised that they were unpopular with the other goblins. Screaming and dancing and throwing heads. They would get told off for sure. But now, she and Fidget could do nothing but hide in the garden and wait for the goblins in the house to go out. To pass the time, and to try to distract herself from the heat of the sun and her growing thirst, Alice told her new friend the story of how she came into the Labyrinth.

"But I'm so sorry," she said quietly. "I don't want Michael to be a goblin, even if he does cry all the time. I want to go home so much, but I want him to go home too. I miss Mommy. Auntie Sarah will be scared cos I'm lost and the G… _he_ was scary to her."

"He scary, yes," said Fidget, wiping Alice's face with a hand marginally cleaner than Alice's. "But we get to Castle. We will. Listen now!"

There was the unmistakeable sound of a door slamming. Fidget and Alice crept up to the tiny house and peered cautiously through the window. Then, hardly believing their luck, they let themselves into the house. Despite her worries about the time, Alice couldn't help stopping for a moment to look around. The room was low-ceilinged and dark, with basic wooden furniture which looked about the right size for Alice. She thought suddenly of her little house in the garden back home. There, Mommy would bring her juice and cookies when Melanie was round to play. Alice's throat ached. There didn't seem to be any food around and, even if there was, it would be stealing.

"Alice thirsty yes?" said Fidget. In one hand, she held a perfectly ripe peach.

"Where did you get that?" said Alice. "It's stealing."

"No, chill out, lots of fruit in City. Come back later, pay back, yes?"

It seemed so reasonable, and Alice was so very hungry and thirsty. The peach was the best thing that she had ever tasted. Somehow, though, she could only take a few bites before she realised how tired she was. Too tired to stand. Too tired to worry about the time, or the Castle, or even Michael. She sat down heavily on one of the little goblin chairs, and the half-eaten peach rolled out of her limp hand.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

She had sworn, after that loss, that she would never get so close to anyone again. If she shut herself off, then she would not, could not, get hurt that badly. Of course there would be friends – no one could go through life utterly friendless – but never again that level of trust. If she got a reputation for being a loner, perhaps for appearing a little arrogant, then that was a price that she would pay willingly. And, although the wound would never heal completely, time would numb the pain into something bearable, each year putting a gossamer layer between the memories and her shattered heart.

The Oubliette stripped all of that away and she was raw again.

Paradoxically, though, it made her realise what she needed to do. Back when she had not been afraid to care, back when she had had true friends, she would have admitted this readily. Was it really this simple after all?

_And remember, should you need us…_

_Deny it all you want, you need me and I need you…_

(I need you, Kip.)

"I need you, Sarah."

The door to the Oubliette opened.

* * *

_Author's Note: This was a tricky chapter – I wanted Sarah and Kip to get out of the Oubliette but honestly wasn't sure how they would manage. While I hadn't originally intended it to be a big chunk of their respective back-stories, I think these turned out to be necessary. So for those of you hoping for a big leap in plot, I apologise. None of the characters have moved a long way in the physical sense!_ _**Cap'n Kspaz**, I hope I've reassured you about the Fireys although I agree that they're pretty creepy._

_Notes to readers who were following "Home" when it was up before. I hope you're still reading._

_**kohmaru**__ – my reviewer of 2008! They keyboard has been dusted off and is a bit shocked by being used for something other than lesson planning. I never thought of this as a dark fic, but I suppose it is at the moment._

_**Iria-Lonely**__ – this will not go unfinished and things WILL be explained. I'm not so cruel as Jareth that I would throw in a line like that and never explain it._

_**Skyrere**__ – thank you for reviewing regularly. As for your _Flash Gordon_ query, the part where Sarah gets frozen is based on a scene in Ming's throne room where one of his less-than-loyal subjects tries to stab him. The poor guy gets frozen by Ming's flying robot, then Ming takes the sword out of his hand and runs him through. So Sarah got off pretty lightly!_

_**Goddess Rose**__ – don't worry, the story has not been abandoned, it was just shelved for a while but hopefully updates will be regular (ish) now._

_**Dreamraven**__ – I like Sarah / Kip too. I will now do the Original Idea Dance, something that doesn't happen very often!_

_**OolongFinale **__– there will be plenty to come about the other goblins – I plan to make Sarah very involved in the goblin life. And thanks for the baby congrats – he's now a whole TWO years old. I'm not sure where those years have gone._

_**Solea**__ – sorry about your tea!_


	8. Seven: The Lady's Quest

**Seven - The Lady's Quest**

"_When his teeth were bared, though, I really got scared. / Well, excited _and_ scared."  
__I Know Things Now (Into The Woods) – Stephen Sondheim_

-X-

_Alice was so very hungry and thirsty. The peach was the best thing that she had ever tasted. Somehow, though, she could only take a few bites before she realised how tired she was. Too tired to stand. Too tired to worry about the time, or the Castle, or even Michael. She sat down heavily on one of the little goblin chairs, and the half-eaten peach rolled out of her limp hand…_

-X-

Once, and not so long ago, there was a king called Tobias. He had a sensible little kingdom, a son and an adopted daughter. And some rather old-fashioned ideas. He thought that a country should be wisely ruled, that a prince should be strong and brave, that a princess should be modest and obedient and beautiful. Only the first of his ideas could be described as having come off. His country was wisely ruled.

King Tobias looked disapprovingly down at his charge. "Really, Alicia," he said, "you will never find yourself a husband if you continue to run about the Court dressed like a ragamuffin. Your mother despairs of your ever becoming a proper young lady."

Young Princess Alicia tossed her filthy curls. "I don't want to be a proper young lady," she declared. "I want to be a knight, like my brother. I want to ride off and have adventures."

"Better you than me," her brother said. Miguel was lounging on some cushions near the fire and showed no inclination to ride off anywhere.

Alicia cast him a scathing glance. "You're so _boring_," she said.

"I'd rather be boring than dirty and bruised and scruffy-looking," Miguel returned.

"I am _not_ scruffy-looking. This is entirely practical attire for a quest. Who knows? Any minute, dragons might attack and it would be every person's duty to ride out and defend the land against them. Which reminds me, can I borrow your practise sword?"

"Dragons, my foot! There are no such things as dragons. And no, you can't."

"But you never use it. At least _I'd_ be ready if dragons did attack and it would…"

"It would be every _man_'s duty to defend the land," King Tobias said. "Alicia, you have the heart of a knight but it resides in the body of a young lady. The only quest that you're going on now is up to your rooms and into a bath. Your mother and I have guests coming for dinner, and I would like to show them a daughter, not a squire."

After their father had gone, Alicia flung herself down onto the cushions beside her brother. "It's not fair," she grumbled. "They'll probably ask me to do embroidery next or something."

"At least take off your muddy boots," Miguel said. Seeing his sister's crestfallen expression, he softened slightly and gave her a hug, which was well meant but rather ineffective due to him trying to avoid the dirty parts. "Look, Alicia, you're going to have to face facts. You're a girl. Girls do stuff like embroidery and boys have to do stuff like sword practise and archery and horse riding…"

"It sounds _wonderful_," Alicia said. "I don't know what you're complaining about."

"I think we were born in the wrong bodies," Miguel decided. "You would make a fine prince, riding around and defending the kingdom, whereas I would like nothing better than to sit indoors, wear nice clothes and have someone look after me."

"If only father would let me go on just _one_ quest," said Alicia wistfully. "Just one little quest. And then I'd try to be a proper lady."

"Maybe when you're married, your husband will take you on a quest with him."

Alicia gave her brother a disgusted look.

"It's got to happen some time, and you know it. Now you'd better run off and make yourself as pretty as possible. If there's any chance of father letting you go off on a quest, you'll have to keep on his good side."

"Oh I suppose so," grumbled the princess, and dragged herself upstairs.

-X-

"So you see," said King Tobias's friend, "that we are quite at our wits' end. "Many of my bravest knights have been lost over the past year, if not to the dragon then to the Sorceress of Words. I'm really not sure which is worse, to be honest. I suppose at least there's a chance that those whom the Sorceress has taken may still be alive. The dragon is much more straightforward."

"He _eats_ them?" gasped Alicia, leaning forward over the table and putting one satin-clad elbow into the butter dish in her excitement. Miguel went pale and pushed his unfinished dinner aside.

"Oh good grief, no," said the Count. "He burns them to a crisp with his fiery breath, young lady."

The King gave his friend a disapproving glare. "Really, you shouldn't encourage her gruesome imagination," he said. "I am trying to find her a suitable husband and no respectable young man would be interested in a gore-obsessed little hellion."

"Oh, of course," said the Count, but he gave Alicia a wink when the King turned to summon a page for the next course.

"Speaking of respectable young men," King Tobias said, "I expected to see your son with you today."

The Count's merry expression melted away. He suddenly looked very old. "I sent him on a quest," he said, "to negotiate with the Sorceress of Words. He never returned."

"Never returned?" said Miguel. "But Jacob is my best friend." He had only wondered idly where his friend had been tonight, but had assumed that Jacob had chosen to stay at home. The weather had been rather unpleasant of late and, given the choice, surely any sensible youth would chose to stay in front of a warm fire than to go gallivanting about the kingdom.

"I'm sorry, lad," said the Count.

"Why would Jacob go on a quest anyway?" said Miguel.

"Why?" asked Alicia. "For duty, for honour, for the sense of adventure!" Her eyes shone as she brandished a table-knife. "To slay dragons, to defeat witches!"

Her brother gave her a stern look. "To vanish and to never be seen again, Alicia."

"Be quiet, both of you," scolded the King. "Is there any hope?" he asked the Count.

"We have had word that the Sorceress of Words may be willing to negotiate," said the Count, "but it would require a brave knight indeed to go out into the Forbidden Forest and seek her out. There's the dragon to contend with as well."

Miguel stood up suddenly, his look of determination at war with his shaking knees. "I will go after Jacob," he said.

"I could never ask that of you," said the Count.

"You are not asking it," said Miguel. "Father, you have always wanted me to go on a quest and I have always said that I could not imagine anything worse. I still can't, but Jacob is my best friend and I would never forgive myself if I didn't try. I will set out within the hour!"

King Tobias was troubled. "I do want you to go on a quest, son," he said quietly, "but not one such as this. You heard what the Count said. Many of his best knights have been lost to these twin perils. I could not let you risk yourself alone in the…"

"I'll go with him!" Alicia said, leaping up from her seat and stumbling over her long dress. "Just let me change first."

"Don't be ridiculous, Alicia," said Miguel and the King in unison.

"No," the King added. "No one is going on a quest tonight. Old friend, stay the night. In the morning we will all discuss what must be done about Jacob."

-X-

"It just isn't _fair_," moaned Alicia as she and Miguel made their way up the stairs.

"No, it isn't," said Miguel. "Look, Alicia, I know you really want to go out and fight but this isn't an adventure. People have been killed. Promise me you won't do anything foolish."

Alicia stopped on the stairwell. "You think I'm foolish?" she said, crestfallen.

"Of course not," said Miguel, putting an arm around her. "But I do think that you do some foolish things when your head is full of the excitement of it all. And even though we argue, you're still my sister. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

Alicia hugged him back. "I know it's dangerous," she said. "It just seems so stupid that you don't want to go out and fight, and I do, but we both have to do the things we don't want to do. I don't want anything to happen to you either. I'm better with a sword than you."

"If I could chose anyone to fight by my side, I'd chose you," said Miguel. "But, sadly, you do happen to be a girl."

"I _know_," Alicia said, tugging at her acres of skirts in disgust. "I promise I won't go running out on some foolish quest right this minute, all right?"

"Wonderful," said Miguel.

-X-

It occurred to Alicia the moment she woke up that she had never extracted from her brother the same promise that she had made him. And, seconds later, she realised that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Usually, her maid woke her with hot chocolate in bed. Today, her suite of rooms was eerily quiet. She pulled on her robe and ran barefoot down the stairs. In the hall, she ran full tilt into the Count, who was so distracted that he failed to notice or comment on the fact that his host's ward was running about the castle in a state of partial undress, unshod and with her hair in complete disarray, very much unlike the proper appearance of the previous night.

"Ah, lady Alicia," he murmured. "You should really, um…"

"It's Miguel, isn't it?" Alicia demanded, grabbing at his arm before he could wander off.

"Young lady, you should… um, well…"

"It _is_. He's gone running off after Jacob, hasn't he?"

"Alicia, I am so sorry, I…"

"Where is he? Which direction did he go? Where does the Sorceress live? What hour did he leave?" Alicia was becoming quite hysterical, her questions tumbling one after the other until she was out of breath.

"Alicia!" King Tobias said from behind her. She turned, suddenly aware of her appearance. Surely she would be punished for her conduct. But the King merely gathered her into his arms. "Thank goodness you at least are safe," he said. "I always thought it would be you who did something like this."

"What _happened_?" Alicia said.

"Last night, Miguel took Armchair and his sword, and rode out in the direction of the Forbidden Forest," said the King. Armchair was technically Alicia's horse, but Miguel preferred him to any other in the stable. Alicia had named him because he was so comfortable and dull to sit on. "We can only assume that he has gone to find the Sorceress of Words, and negotiate for Jacob's release."

"He made me promise…" said Alicia in a small voice. "When he comes back safe and sound, I'm going to kill him."

The King took a shaky breath. "My dear, your brother… We found Armchair this morning, wandering about along the edge of the wood."

"But Miguel…" said Alicia. "You found him too. He's hurt but he'll be fine, right?"

"We did not find him," said the King, and turned away before she could see the tears in his eyes.

Alicia ran from the hall, her mind going in six different directions at once. She was angry with Miguel for going out on a quest without her, especially when he had told her to stay at home. She was terrified and upset that her brother might be hurt. Her heart pounded unpleasantly in her chest. Miguel had been taken, she hoped by the Sorceress. Alicia wouldn't even entertain the thought that he might have encountered the dragon. Many of the Count's best knights had vanished or been killed. The King would probably send his own bravest in search of his son, but there was no guarantee any of them would be successful and, besides, it would take time to muster a party like that. Time that Miguel and Jacob did not have.

But it would take no time at all for a rather unladylike young lady to change into her brother's old trousers, borrow his practise armour and sword and liberate some provisions from the kitchens while everyone was distracted...

In fact, it took a little under half an hour. Saddling a horse took a little more time. Poor Armchair was keen to go back out, but Alicia rejected him for the faster and more troublesome Stardust. She had only once before ridden that horse, on a bet with the stable boy. It had taken three weeks for the bruises to fade after she had misjudged quite how high he would jump over the fence. Biting her lip, she clung to the reins as they raced from the stable. They could not go out of the front gate, so would have to risk the fence again. This time, though, determination finally gave Alicia a little grace and she managed to stay mounted. She badly wanted to turn around and say goodbye to the castle, but was afraid that she would lose her nerve. All of a sudden, this quest was horribly real.

It was easy to follow the route that Miguel had taken. The ground was churned into mud by the hooves of the search party this morning. Keeping an eye out lest any riders should still be out, Alicia steered Stardust in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. It loomed, dark and menacing, against the hills. Just as Alicia thought that she would be able to reach it without being caught, she heard a thunder of hooves coming towards her. There was only one place that she could hide. Alicia yanked hard on the reins and dug her heels into Stardust's side. The horse veered sharply and raced into the ravine where the dragon was rumoured to live.

-X-

Really, it wasn't too bad in here, Alicia thought. Yes, the ravine sides were steep and blocked out a lot of light but it wasn't like the Forbidden Forest where you felt as though creatures were watching your every move. This was just a little chilly. And empty. Very empty, actually. It was almost as if there wasn't a single bird or animal in the ravine at all.

As if they had all been burned to a crisp, in fact.

"I'm _not_ scared," Alicia muttered to herself. "I'm just excited about the quest."

"Of course you are," said a smooth voice from behind her. Alicia screamed and Stardust shied violently. Alicia stayed on only by clinging to the saddle with both hands. _A real knight wouldn't have dropped the reins_, she scolded herself_, and he would have drawn his sword_. When she managed to turn Stardust, however, she forgot all about her sword.

"How dull, another baby knight," said the dragon.

He was beautiful, Alicia noticed distractedly. Although large enough to eat her in a couple of bites, he didn't seem ungainly in the way that the massive carthorses were. Instead he was sleek and powerful, a thousand shades of sapphire blue scales shimmering in the filtered light, intelligent golden eyes sizing up his tiny adversary. Almost as though he was doing it for theatrical effect, the dragon opened his mouth and ran a lazy tongue across an impressive row of very sharp-looking teeth.

"I'm not a baby knight," Alicia said. "I'm a… well, I'm not precisely a knight at all."

The dragon's eyes widened. "They can't have run out of knights _already_," he said. "What are you, a squire?"

"Um no, I'm not a squire either."

"A _servant?_" rumbled the dragon, and there was rising fury in his tone.

"I am most certainly _not_!" said Alicia angrily. She wrenched off her helmet. "I happen to be the princess of this kingdom, thank you very much."

"Princess, eh?" said the dragon. He reached toward her. His claws gleamed.

_I'm going to die now_, thought Alicia, but the dragon merely touched her shield, her sword and her rather tangled curls with a massive, lethal claw. Alicia was quite impressed that she managed not to faint. Beneath her, Stardust trembled but was too frightened even to run.

"A little warrior princess," said the dragon. Maybe she was fooling herself, but Alicia thought that she could hear amusement in his voice.

"Did you eat my brother?" she managed finally.

"Eat your brother? I doubt it. If he was your size, he wouldn't have been worth the effort," said the dragon.

"How about burning him? Did you burn him?" Now that she wasn't dead yet, Alicia could feel her courage returning a tiny bit.

"Burn him? You mean like this?" The dragon took a massive breath, and Alicia's newly-returned bravery drained away. The blast of heat which passed her felt as though it would fry away every hair on her head. A group of sad-looking bushes had a brief moment of orange glory and then were ash.

"Yes," said Alicia, in a tiny, meek voice which would astonish anyone who had ever met her. "Like that."

"Little warrior princess, I haven't burned anyone," said the dragon. "The Sorceress of Words started to destroy people with her magic and blamed me so that the knights would try to slay me. She is afraid of me and my power, and she wants me dead."

Alicia stared at the dragon's jewel-bright scales, and the thought that anyone would lie to the kingdom in order to get this beautiful creature killed made her sad and furious all at once. "That's so _mean_," she said. "Why don't you just find her and eat her?"

"Alas," said the dragon, sorrow in his voice, "I cannot confront the Sorceress. It is said that no man or beast may destroy her. That is why all of the knights have also failed."

"But I'm not a man or a beast," said Alicia. "I'm only a girl."

"So you are," said the dragon, and smiled. "Maybe you are the one who can defeat her. It will still be very dangerous, though."

"I have to go," said Alicia. "She has my brother and I'm on a quest to rescue him."

"Well then," said the dragon, "I will go with you, and make sure that you come to no harm on the way."

The problem was that Stardust wouldn't go anywhere with the dragon. He rolled his eyes and put his ears back, remaining stubbornly and uncharacteristically still no matter how much Alicia dug her heels into his sides and pulled on the reins.

"Come _on_, stupid horse," said Alicia.

The dragon paced back towards her. Stardust moved suddenly, but in completely the wrong direction, causing Alicia to drop the reins again. Something that sounded suspiciously like laughter rumbled from the dragon.

"You're not helping," said Alicia, forgetting to be scared because she was so annoyed.

"I know that every knight requires a steed, but you are wasting time," said the dragon.

"He's scared of you," said Alicia. She should be scared too. The dragon was still enormous and very powerful; he still had huge, sharp teeth and long, sharp claws; he could still reduce her to ashes. It was almost as though he had cast a spell on her.

"There is another solution," said the dragon thoughtfully, "but it would require a great deal of courage from you and you must trust me with your life."

Alicia gave him a long look. "More courage and trust than sitting here and believing you won't eat me, you mean?"

This time, there was no question. The dragon threw back his magnificent head and roared with laughter. Stardust bolted suddenly and Alicia, who had been leanimg forward to grab at his reins, was thrown to the ground. She could only watch in dismay as her mount tore off down the ravine. When he was found frightened and riderless, Alicia realised with a sick feeling, her family would assume that she had met the same fate as her brother and Jacob.

"I apologise," said the dragon.

Alicia was no expert but she didn't think he sounded or looked sorry at all. She scrambled to her feet, managing not to get tangled in her sword belt. "I suppose I don't have any choice now," she said. "And you haven't eaten me so far so I can probably trust you."

"Very generous," said the dragon. He padded over to Alicia and stretched out his neck so that his head was almost on the ground. "Come on then."

Alicia froze. "You want me to ride on your back?" she said incredulously. The thought was terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.

The dragon bared his teeth in another worrying grin. "You could ride in my mouth if you like," he said.

"Oh very amusing," muttered Alicia. With far less grace and elegance than either her royal status or the dragon's majestic bearing demanded, she scrambled up one glistening shoulder and managed to perch between the folded wings. The midnight blue scales on the dragon's back were as big as the palm of Alicia's hand and diamond-hard but smooth to the touch. She found herself tracing one idly with a fingertip and wishing she was a fraction as beautiful. The dragon twisted his head around, jolting her out of her reverie.

"Do not worry, little warrior princess," he said. "I will not let you fall."

Alicia stared into the big golden eyes and felt as though she was falling already. "I'm not scared at all," she murmured and, in that instant, it was true.

A moment later, the dragon sprang into the air, massive wings unfolding at the apex of the leap, and Alicia was more afraid than she had ever been in her life. Stardust's swift power was a sedate carthorse plod compared to the dragon. In seconds, the rocky floor of the ravine was far behind and the sprawl of the Forbidden Forest began to unfurl below them. Alicia's blinked tears from her eyes as the wind buffeted her face. She didn't dare loose a hand to wipe them away, instead leaning closer over the dragon so her face was almost touching his back. Warmth wrapped around her, soothing her fear. She closed her eyes and let her cheek rest against the smooth scales.

And she could see the world streaming below her again.

Alicia gasped and bolted upright, almost losing her balance. Her eyes had been closed and her face hidden by beating wings. How could she see anything? Very slowly, her heart beating hard, she leaned forward again.

_Ah, there you are,_ said the dragon in her head.

"Am I seeing because of you?" Alicia whispered.

_To some extent. You cannot see exactly as I do._

"Is it magic?"

The dragon chuckled. _Princess, I am a magical being. Of course it is magic. Now, did I tell you not to be afraid?_

"Yes, but…"

_Then do not be afraid. Very few humans have ever ridden a dragon. Your quest is great indeed._

Alicia lay still. All her life, she had wanted to go on a quest. She had imagined riding out to fight foes, wielding her sword better than any of the King's knights, facing overpowering odds yet managing somehow to win through. This was nothing like her fantasies. It was far more horrible. Her brother was missing, maybe even dead. Nobody in the castle had any idea where she was, but they would probably guess the worst. She had to fight the Sorceress of Words when she was, after all, only a young, distinctly un-magical girl.

Yet this was better than any of her fantasies too. She could never have dreamed that she would fly on a dragon's back. His power and confidence seemed to flow into her veins. Maybe she _could_ defeat the Sorceress. The dragon had called her 'warrior princess'. He had faith that Alicia was more than any of the knights that had gone before her. When Alicia had beaten the Sorceress, she must come back to the castle and tell everyone about how the dragon had helped her save Miguel and Jacob. Everyone in the kingdom should know the truth about the dragon. Really, the Sorceress deserved to be slain for what she had done. How could everyone have believed her?

_She has been my enemy for a very long time_, the dragon said, almost as if Alicia had asked the question aloud. _She has always sought my power. Because she is not a truly magical being, she must work hard and suffer to do magic that comes naturally to me. She believes that, if she defeats me, she can steal my magic but she is wrong._

"But if she's not properly magical, why can't you just eat her or burn her up?"

_I should have done so, years ago. When she was a mere girl, testing her wings with simple charms and illusions, I showed her great generosity and guided her. Yet she threw it back in my face, tried to take everything from me. By the time I realised what she was, she had managed to build up a powerful spell of protection against me and any who might help me._

"No man or beast," Alicia said.

_In her arrogance, the Sorceress never imagined that another young woman could be as strong as she is. As _you_ are. She believes that her only threat was from me or from one of those knights who keep trying to fight her._

"Typical!" Alicia said. "Everyone keeps telling me I should be a proper lady and do stupid embroidery. I'll show her!"

_I am sure that you will_, the dragon said.

-X-

It would have taken Alicia hours, perhaps even days, to pick her way through the Forbidden Forest on Stardust's back but the sun had barely moved in the sky before the trees disappeared and the dragon was descending towards a shining black fortress surrounded by barren fields. Even if Alicia had not been riding an enormous blue dragon, she could not have approached the fortress unseen. Surely the Sorceress could just strike them down at her leisure.

_She cannot harm me directly any more than I can harm her,_ said the dragon. _And she probably cannot see you at all just yet. Had you been alone on your horse, however…_

Through the dragon's eyes, Alicia saw a charred pile of armour. She felt sick. Had that been Jacob's fate, or Miguel's?

The dragon landed lightly beside the fortress and Alicia slid from his back, her limbs aching. She stayed close to the dragon as they walked up to the massive gateway.

"It's just open," she said. "Is this a trap?"

"Undoubtedly," said the dragon. He stopped, gazing up at the glossy black wall, then stretched out his neck and roared.

Alicia put her hands over her ears but did not move from his side. High above the gateway, she thought she saw a flicker of movement at one of the windows but it came and went too quickly to be sure.

"Come on," said the dragon, "And remember, you are a warrior."

They passed through the gateway, the dragon folding his wings tight. After the brightness of the sun, Alicia could barely see anything. She squinted into the darkness, keeping a hand on the dragon's neck so she did not stumble. "Miguel?" she whispered, although it was probably too much to hope that he might be found straight away.

"You think it would be so easy?" The voice seemed to come from the walls, echoing in the empty space.

"You're the Sorceress of Words?" Alicia said. She flattened her palm against the dragon's scales, reminding herself that she had faced him in all of his terrible beauty. She could be a worthy adversary.

"And you are a princess who wishes to be a knight who travels with a knight's mortal enemy."

"He's not like that!" Alicia said hotly. "You told all of those lies…"

Bitter laughter rang around the chamber. "Oh yes, I am the Sorceress of Words so I spin tall tales. Has it never occurred to you, child, that the dragon would tell you anything to turn you against me?"

"But he…" Alicia began. The Sorceress was right. She had taken all of his words as truth but why had she done that?

"I am not the one holding captives and destroying knights," said the dragon. "I have come to safeguard this girl against your treachery."

"Treachery? You know all about treachery, lying snake. The princess needs no protection against me."

Alicia stepped away from the dragon as her eyes began to adjust to the low light. She felt very small, caught in this hostility between two such powerful beings. All she wanted to do was find Miguel and get home safely.

"Please, Sorceress, I just want to find my brother," she said.

"And you will not attempt to slay me at the dragon's request? I find that hard to believe. Still, I should always give a valiant knight a chance against me."

The chamber flooded with light and suddenly, Alicia saw Miguel in front of her. With a cry of joy, she ran towards him, hand outstretched. But, at the moment when her fingers should have touched his, he vanished.

"That's not fair!" Alicia said. She spun around and saw her brother again. A movement of her head and there was another image of Miguel, and another. In one image, the dragon stood, golden eyes blazing rage. Before Alicia knew what was going on, the chamber was filled with countless copies of Miguel, of the dragon and, finally, of a slender woman with cool green eyes and black hair that tumbled to her waist. The Sorceress of Words.

"They say I create artifice from language," she said. "Yet I have other ways as well."

Alicia started to move towards her and stumbled as the image wavered. This was not a single chamber of slick black stone. It was a maze made up of scores of mirrors and planes of glass set at impossible angles to each other. When Alicia had let go of the dragon, she had somehow become lost. Or perhaps the maze had not been there until that moment. She stared helplessly at the Sorceress.

"You know what you must do," said the Sorceress. "A hundred copies…" She disappeared with a wave of her hands. "…but one original," another image continued.

"I need to find Miguel," Alicia said.

"No one ends a quest without defeating an enemy," said the Sorceress. "I have told a thousand thousand tales and that one is eternal."

A flash of blue caught Alicia's eyes and she turned to see the dragon stalking across one mirrored surface. "That much is true, little warrior," he said. "Do you think you will get out of this maze if you leave the Sorceress untouched?"

Alicia took a hesitant step and bumped against glass. Behind her, she heard someone chuckle softly. It could have been the Sorceress or the dragon. She could not be sure of anything any more. _Miguel_, she told herself. She had to remember what was important. Alicia placed one hand against the smooth surface and drew her sword with the other. She had chosen this quest or it had chosen her. Either way, she had to defeat the maze or she and Miguel were both lost. Slowly, she edged forward, trying to keep her eyes on an image of her brother. Her wavering sword tip chimed softly as it met another mirror. Alicia turned. Another dead end. She turned again.

She was caught in a circle of glass. In front of her, the Sorceress approached, endless reflections spreading out to either side.

"Will you slay me now?" she asked, her hands spread wide. "But what if this is not the real me?"

"She is trying to trick you. You know she will never let you leave," came the dragon's voice. Sapphire blue spilled from one mirror into the next until the dragon was standing beside the Sorceress, his images overlapping hers, dragon and woman repeated over and over again until they completed the circle and seemed to bleed into each other. Alicia swayed dizzily. Out of the corner of her eye, one of the Sorceress's mirror images seemed to be laughing at her.

Then, from nowhere, Miguel was between the two enemies, sprawled inelegantly on the glossy black floor. Alicia reached towards him but he was secure behind the glass wall. This was the real version of her brother, she was sure, but how could she get to him?

"You know what you have to do," said the dragon.

"You know what he wants you to do," said the Sorceress.

Alicia's sword shook in her hand. "Is he still alive?" she asked.

"Of course," the Sorceress said and one of her images bent down toward Miguel. One image. The only one. The true one.

_There!_ said the dragon's voice in Alicia's mind. _Strike!_

Alicia turned towards the image, her sword aimed at the Sorceress's heart. The Sorceress raised her head and stared into Alicia's eyes. Her serene, pale face was full of sorrow but not a trace of fear. "Please," she said softly. Alicia glanced over her shoulder and saw triumph blaze in a single copy of the dragon's golden eyes.

Sobbing, the Princess Alicia whirled and drove her sword through the dragon's true image.

* * *

_Author's Note: The title and first paragraph (more or less) are from the short story by Nicholas Stuart Gray, as are a lot of the concepts in this chapter. The princess in that tale is called Alexa. It's a brilliant story and I have it in the collection "Mainly In Moonlight". There isn't a dragon in his story but, for obvious reasons, there had to be one in mine._

_Thanks to __**white raven**__ for the beta job. You rock!_

_**NOTE TO ALL READERS**__: There is now a poll up on my page regarding Sarah's eventual fate. Should she be Changed or not? What do you think? This isn't a "choose your own adventure" moment – I'm just curious and I reserve the right to decide that you're all wrong and I'm doing my own thing anyway. evil chuckle_

_And also, thank you for continuing to read the story despite my erratic posting. Thank you so much to those who have reviewed or added it (or me) to your alert lists. It is very much appreciated. Now to answer a few questions…_

_**Subtilior**__ – stalking is the sincerest form of flattery. Or something. In answer to your questions – no, Alice is not Sarah's daughter. She is genuinely just her half-step-niece, but Sarah loves her deeply. There is, however, a reason why Jareth said what he did and it will be explained. As for the 'getting it on', I say again "mwahahahaaaa!". Oh and also – you were dead wrong about the peach dream!_

_**Anij**__ – Firstly, thanks for reviewing so comprehensively. And now… __**1.**__ I agree with you about the emo-Jareth although I have seen variations of that done very well. But I definitely wanted a Jareth who was so totally over Sarah that he'd not given her a thought in years. __**2.**__ "Oh Sarah, you didn't…" Sorry, but Sarah very well may have done. __**3.**__ Kitchen maid? Hah! In her dreams! She may yet end up as one, however. __**4.**__ I love writing Alice but keeping in the six-year-old mindset can be tricky. __**5.**__ I also love my Oubliette. Jareth knows everything about Kip's past, including her human past. As for Sarah and Kip's similarities – they may be Jareth's downfall. Mwahahahaaaaaa! __**6.**__ Fidget is basically a child so her (yes, she's a girl) act of giving Alice the peach wasn't malicious or even the albeit forced underhandedness of Hoggle's gesture. She just found the peach that _someone_ conveniently left in the house and thought her new friend might like it._

_**AFY**__ – it's a lot easier making Sarah 37 because she's only a little older than me. It was also necessary in order for Toby to have grown up and got married. But I have absolutely no regrets about it. There are features in my older Sarah that I feel wouldn't have been there in her ten years younger._

_**Helena Darjeeling**__ – don't worry, I'll separate Kip and Sarah at some point, if for no other reason than the dialogue is driving me insane. Sarah in this story is not 35-year-old Jennifer. Obviously, there's some stuff in common but imagine Jennifer as a slightly bitter writer as opposed to a successful movie star. She's a little heavier, less physically fit, maybe the odd frown line or grey hair. Not to say that she's not beautiful in her own way. But she's normal middle-aged-woman beautiful, if that makes any sense._

_**violetmadame**__ – if you want a non-elvish Jareth, I'd suggest looking at __**subtilior**__'s stuff because he's definitely not Elvish there. But be careful, her stories don't pull punches at all._

_**Solea **__– finally, a NEW new chapter!_


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